


Summer 2017

by slpblue



Series: The AU™ [5]
Category: All Time Low (Band), Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Bandom
Genre: Also fluff, Alternate Timeline, Angst, F/M, Idk how to tag things, Rian Dawson Is the Luckiest Man Alive, So much angst, uhhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:01:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23404153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slpblue/pseuds/slpblue
Summary: The summer of 2017 is proof that there really is no such thing as a happy ending.
Relationships: Apollo (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore)/Alex Gaskarth, Jack Barakat/Zack Merrick, Rian Dawson/Eros (Ancient Greek Religion & Lore)
Series: The AU™ [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1385668
Kudos: 2





	Summer 2017

**Author's Note:**

> **CONTENT WARNINGS IN THE END NOTE**

Eros is waiting for Rian at the airport when the notifications come in on his phone. They’re rapid-fire, four right after each other, from Apollo.

_He isn’t here_

_I don’t know where he is_

_He own’t pick up hisphone_

_Mikewaht do I do_

Eros bites his lip, shifting uncomfortably. His back aches, and his knee has been bothering him all day. _Maybe his flight was delayed,_ he texts back. He won’t admit that he’s concerned. He’d heard about how cagey Alex had acted at the end of the tour, how he changed the songs. Rian had called him one night, softly told him he was worried. Eros didn’t know what to tell him, especially since Alex didn’t seem to want to talk to anyone about why he was acting the way he was.

 _Mayb,_ is the only reply he gets.

_I’ll call you later. Rian should be getting in soon._

Eros’ message says it’s been read but Apollo doesn’t reply. Eros sighs and pockets the device, the ache in his knee getting worse. He really just wants to sit down.

Thankfully, the next time his phone buzzes it’s a message from Rian. Eros smiles. _Just landed. Can’t wait to see you :)_

When Rian finally descends the escalator, Eros flings himself into his arms, nearly knocking them both over.

“Ros!” Rian laughs.

“I missed you so much,” Eros mumbles into Rian’s chest.

“Angel, we need to move out of the way,” Rian says, gently pushing him aside. When they’re out of danger of being run over by hurried travelers, Rian puts his fingers under Eros’ chin and tilts his head up, pressing their lips softly together. “I missed you too,” Rian says.

“I love you,” Eros says.

“I love you.” Rian hefts his backpack farther onto his shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”

Eros makes an apologetic face, pulling out the car keys. “Can you drive?”

Rian is surprised to see the keys for half a second—why drive when your husband can teleport?—before he takes in the expression on Eros’ face, the pain written there he has seen too many times, the way he holds his leg out at an awkward angle. “Does it hurt?”

Eros nods, sucking in a breath as a muscle in his side starts to cramp up. “Yeah.”

“Angel, I could have gotten a cab.”

“It wasn’t bad until I got here.” Eros winces. “Can we please leave now.”

“Yes.” Rian pulls Eros close and kisses his forehead. “Of course.”

The drive home is excruciating, Eros gripping Rian’s hand tight the whole way. “Can you drive any faster,” Eros croaks at one point.

“The speed limit is—”

“ _Rian,_ ” Eros says urgently, “please.”

The engine revs as Rian urges a little more speed out of their vehicle.

They don’t get home too soon. Eros leaves Rian in the car in favor of stumbling out of it and immediately vomiting into the bushes on one side of the driveway. Rian is at his side in a moment, rubbing his back and speaking soft reassurances.

“Oh god,” Eros gasps, spitting.

“Do you feel any better?”

Grimacing, Eros shakes his head. “Not really. _Shit_.”

“Let’s get inside, my love.”

Eros presses himself to Rian’s side as his husband walks him into their house, setting him down on the couch and pulling his shoes off. Eros groans and pulls up his feet, curling into himself. “It’s gonna happen soon.”

“Do you need me to do anything?”

“Just—go get your luggage. You know it’s not good to watch.”

Rian nods and pushes back Eros’ hair, kissing his forehead. “I love you.”

“I— _unh—_ love you too.”

Eros stays there, curled on the couch, and listens to Rian roll his suitcase across the floor and upstairs into their bedroom. It didn’t used to hurt this much, the changing. Not even in the late seventies, when the drugs were really starting to fuck with him. He hopes it goes quick this time.

He’s not so lucky. He hears something crack in his wrist and he cries out, biting his tongue to keep from being too loud. Despite his efforts he hears Rian’s footsteps stop upstairs, listening. Eros knows how hard it is for him to listen to this and not be able to help him.

A second later, he feels each of the bones in his spine pop, and he unfurls his wings, no longer able to keep them hidden away. Eros tugs a throw pillow close and bites the corner of it, screwing his eyes shut. Fuck. _Fuck._

It happens slowly and then all at once, a white-hot pain that rockets through his tendons, all of his muscles cramping up at once. Eros can’t help but scream. This is the worst it’s ever felt, almost as bad as how it was when Rian died. That’s the last thought he has before his mind is taken over completely by the pain.

His bones crack as they break themselves and fuse back together in slightly different shapes. His nose itches, then stings, then burns, the cartilage cutting open and sewing imperfectly closed. His skin splits open at his joints, light pouring out as his godly form tries to break through. It’s terrible, excruciating. It makes him want to relapse, if only to make sure he never feels this way again.

Eros doesn’t remember a lot after that, just knows that eventually, an eternity later, the pain starts to ebb from his body. He takes a deep breath like he’s been underwater for two minutes, throat catching painfully on oxygen.

Clenching and unclenching his fists, he opens his eyes. His body aches. “Rian,” he croaks. It’s not loud enough for Rian to hear, but Eros knows he’ll be able to feel him through their Bond, reaching and calling for him.

Sure enough, a few seconds later Rian’s footsteps sound on the stairs. Eros watches him stop when he catches sight of him. “Kal,” Rian says softly.

Eros turns to look at his body, getting used to the new sight. _Her_ new body, he—she—should say. Eros has completed the transformation into his female form, Kállos.

Kállos looks back at Rian. “Help me up,” she asks.

Rian bends down and takes her hands, pulling her to her feet. “How do you feel?”

“Like garbage,” Kállos says dryly. Her voice is hoarse. She leans into Rian’s chest. “But better with you.”

Rian kisses the top of her head. “You’re bleeding,” he says, concerned.

Kállos turns her arms to look at the inside of her elbows, where golden ichor wells in old scars. “My skin did just rip itself open and pull itself back together.”

“Let me get you cleaned up,” Rian says gently, helping her up to their bathroom.

“Can we take a bath?” Kállos asks, when Rian starts digging around for antiseptic. “I’m...tired, and I feel gross.”

Rian stands, hydrogen peroxide in one hand and bandages in the other. “Of course.” He hands her the two things in his hands, and she dribbles the hydrogen peroxide over the insides of her elbows while he turns on the tap for the bath. It burns a little, and she closes her eyes, trying to breathe evenly.

She doesn’t even have to say anything before Rian is as her side, kissing her neck and gripping her shoulders to pull her back into the present. “You’re okay,” he whispers into her skin. “You’re at home with me.”

“It just…” she trails off, the shaky thoughts of needles and drugs enough to convey to Rian what she’s trying to say.

“I know,” he says, holding her gently. “Let me wash off your arms.”

Kállos is very still, watching Rian gently run water over her skin. She already looks and feels better. Rian helps her out of her clothes; she’s about the same size now as when she’s Eros, just a little taller, but she feels weak and the size difference is just enough that she doesn’t want to do it on her own.

Rian holds her arms as she sinks into the water, sighing as the warmth soaks into her muscles, easing the soreness. “Do we still have bubble bath?”

Rian snorts air out of his nose in amusement. “We have _bottles_ of bubble bath.”

Kállos smiles tiredly. “Don’t be mean. I like bubbles.”

“I know you do, angel,” Rian says, uncapping a bottle and pouring it in. Bubbles start to spread over the surface of the water.

Kállos watches as Rian undresses, setting their towels down near the tub so they don’t have to walk across the bathroom to get them. Rian eases into the tub, sliding down behind Kállos. She leans back into his chest, pulling his arms closer around her waist. They sit like that for a while, waiting for the tub to finish filling with water. Bubbles grow and fizz gently around them. Kállos closes her eyes, making a soft noise of protest when Rian reaches forward to turn off the tap, only happy when he settles back down and tucks her close again.

“How do you feel?” Rian asks.

Kállos tilts her head so she can look into his face. She reaches up to touch his temple, where a spattering of dusky orange and yellow scales have emerged, his mer features becoming more pronounced with his submersion in water. She mourns the loss of the other mer features he had when he was younger, surgically removed to try and fit into a world that didn’t know that mermaids were real. “Better,” she whispers.

They’re quiet for a minute, Rian slowly running a washcloth over her skin, washing away her aches. “How was tour?” she asks after a while, feeling sleepy. More than anything she just wants to hear his voice.

Rian launches into a story of tour shenanigans, and Kállos lets his voice lull her into peace.

* * *

Rian always seems to dance around Kállos when she’s in this form, as though he’s not sure where to put his hands or what to do with her. Kállos doesn’t blame him, remembering how the first few times she had changed she had refused to even let him touch her, feeling disgusting in her skin, old traumas choking her like bile.

It’s different now though. It’s not like they haven’t had sex while she was a woman, not like the outine of Rian’s teeth isn’t scarred into her shoulder in both forms. It’s not like Rian isn’t attracted to her (she knew, from the way he had groaned when she finally let him put his hands on her skin, that he was _very_ attracted to her). And like, it’s been days since he got home—she wants some dick.

Kállos watches Rian from the door to their bathroom, slightly bent over the bed as he folds the last of a load of laundry. The muscles in his back bunch attractively under his sleep shirt as he pulls a pair of his jeans closer and slides them on a hanger. She’s quiet for a moment, still toweling her hair after her shower and cozy in her pajamas, and watches him. The way his body moves is hypnotic.

Eventually, he notices her presence, turning around and smiling after he’s put away the last of their clothes. “Hey.”

“Hey,” she replies, soft. She crosses the room, reaching up to slide her fingers in the hair at the back of his neck. “Your hair is getting long.”

He hums, tilting his head toward her touch. “I didn’t have time to get it cut before I came home.”

“You could have asked Jack,” she says, keeping her voice low. His hair is so soft.

“Nah, Jack had a pretty nasty bite on his right hand for the last leg of the tour. Alright for strumming a guitar, not so much for using scissors.”

“On his hand?” Kállos smiles. “Zack should know better than to endanger his playing.”

“I think Zack knows exactly what he’s doing,” Rian replies, amused.

Kállos takes Rian’s hand in her own, twisting them together. “Where did he bite him?” she asks.

Rian is silent, searching her face for a moment before he brings her hand to his mouth, biting down gently on the fleshy part between her thumb and forefinger. _Here_ , he thinks.

Her breath catches. _Harder_ , she tells him, and he does, biting until it stings and she gasps from the pain. Rian’s eyes are boring into hers, cutting right through to her soul. She feels tingly all over.

She wants to kiss him. The need is so strong she can’t exhale the breath she’s sucked in, and Rian closes his eyes and makes a soft sound when he feels her desire tug at his brain. He releases his teeth from her skin, the leftover saliva tingling at the welts, the healing properties going to work. Rian cups her face in his hands and kisses her slowly. Kállos slides her arms around his neck, pulling him in deeper. He dips down to meet her, compliant to her demands.

She backs them into the bed, pulling Rian down after her by the lip. His hands wrap under her thighs, pushing her higher up the bed.

Kállos kisses Rian, hot, needy, pulling him closer to her. “I love you,” she mumbles into his mouth, taking his wrist in her hand and placing his palm over her breast.

Rian breaks their kiss, breathing heavy. “What do you want?”

Kállos whines at the loss of contact of their lips. “Ri, what color are my eyes?” Her eyes swirl pink when she’s turned on, the more lust she feels the deeper the saturation. And when she comes—they flood with the color of the eyes of whoever has just brought her to orgasm. Rian knows this, knows it’s an indicator of how much she’s really into the moment sexually, loves to watch her eyes wash over with his eye color, whether she’s Kállos _or_ Eros.

“They’re pink, but—”

“Please just fuck me.”

“Are you sure?” He looks concerned.

Kállos groans, tugging at the hem of her shirt and pulling it off. “Very.”

If Rian has any more reserves he doesn’t voice them, leaning back enough to pull his own shirt off. Kállos drinks in the sight of his skin. “You’re so hot,” she breathes.

Rian touches the inside of her thigh, running his fingers up to the waistband of her sleep shorts. “So are you,” he says, and the lust and awe in his eyes gives her no room to doubt him. Kállos will never not feel lucky to be so loved by Rian, so wanted. No matter what form she’s in or what she looks like, Rian cares for and is attracted to her, treats her better than she has ever treated herself. She doesn’t deserve him, and yet he’s given her his everything anyway.

Kállos lifts her hips, pushing her shorts down, and Rian does the same, pulling them and his underwear down in one go. Kállos hungrily eyes just dick, already half hard. “Someone’s excited to see me,” she teases.

“How could I not be?” Rian says, hands sliding up her stomach, pressing on her ribs. “When my mate looks like this?”

Kállos shivers. She’ll never get tired of Rian calling her that. _Say it again,_ she thinks.

 _Zriluuqki,_ Rian thinks at her, dipping down to her chest, mouth sucking at her nipple.

Kállos moans. Fuck, she loves when he pulls on his knowledge of Mer. It conveys more than the English equivalencies could ever hope to. _Ickik vrtin Zri._

Rian pauses in his movements, half-laughing. “I don’t know what that means.”

“It means you need to learn Mer,” Kállos huffs good-naturedly. “But really,” she adds, sultry, “essentially it’s a much more sensual and explicit way of asking you to fuck me.”

“You could have just said that,” Rian murmurs, mouth back over her skin, sucking at her chest, biting at any spare soft flesh he can find.

Kállos hisses at the sting of his teeth. “I’m going to teach you Mer,” she breathes, “and then I don’t have to translate all the dirty things I want to say to you anymore.”

Rian hums, thumbs pressing hard into the soft flesh of her thighs. His mouth wanders down over her stomach, and Kállos feels blood pump hotly in her groin. Rian kisses her hip, and Kállos sucks in a breath. His kisses continue downwards, until his mouth is pressed over her underwear. Her legs twitch. She’s so wet. “Ri,” she rasps.

“Do you want it?”

“ _Yes_ , you insufferable _tease_.”

Without another word he pulls her panties down and off. He doesn’t even have to touch her thighs before she’s spread her legs, and Rian goes down on her without her needing to ask consent another time, lips immediately wrapped around her clit, sucking.

Kállos, gasps, hands going to Rian’s hair and tugging him closer. “Fuck, just like that.”

Rian knows what he’s doing, sucking like his life depends on it. Kállos moans as Rian’s tongue presses into her, curling up and licking its way out, over and over, as deep as he can get it. Her hips jerk as his hand comes to supplement all the hard work his mouth is doing, thumb rubbing circles into her clit. Rian thrusts his tongue in again, and Kállos decides that, while this is really, really great, what she would like is some dick now, thank you very much.

“Rian,” she gasps, pulling on his hair. “Rian.”

He looks up, licking his lips, and she groans at the sight. She can feel the faint satisfaction, the nearly imperceptible _taste good_ oozing through their Bond. “Yeah?”

“C’mere. Kiss me.”

Rian grins, crawling up her body to meet her lips, one hand still playing with her pussy, the other moving to cup her tit.

Kállos kisses him for a moment, before she grabs the hand at her groin. “Stop,” she says, and Rian’s hand immediately follows where she takes it.

“What is it?” he asks, closing his eyes as though trying not to ravish her there and then.

“I want you to fuck me now.”

Rian’s eyes are very dark when he opens them again, and he hungrily presses their lips back together. “You want me?” he growls into Kállos’ mouth.

“Yes,” she breathes, legs open and waiting, hips twitching. “Yes.”

Rian doesn’t waste any more time preparing to fuck her, pumping his dick a few times in one hand to ready himself. He rubs the head against her clit, making her whimper. “Ri,” she says pathetically, and he grins at her. Rian slides his dick down to her hole, one hand rubbing teasingly at her pussy as he guides himself into her.

“Oh,” Kállos breathes, “ohhhh.”

Rian slides in with increasingly deep thrusts, slowly working her open. It isn’t long before he’s bottomed out, holding still as he feels Kállos clench around him, muscle walls spasming. He groans under his breath. “You good?”

“Yes,” Kállos says, rolling her hips. More, she wants more. “Make it hard. Make it rough.”

Rian hooks her legs up and kisses one of her knees. He doesn’t say anything before pulling nearly all the way out and slamming back into her.

Kállos cries out in pleasure, back arching. She’s been wanting this for _days_ as Kállos, and at least a month before that as Eros. Now that she’s got it it’s even better than she remembered. Why she and Rian ever stop having sex she can’t fathom, not when it always this _good._

Rian bites his lip, breathing hard. He’s holding her legs in a tight grip, the calluses on his hands rough over her skin. Kállos realizes that while she’s been focusing on how much she’s missed getting laid, she completely neglected to realize that Rian was simultaneously not getting any. This is just as good for him.

The thought makes her body heat up even more. As good as her mate is making her feel, she’s making him feel good too. Satisfaction and pride drip like liquid gold through her veins, and she grinds her hips into Rian’s thrusts, trying to be as good of a lay as she possibly can.

Her efforts pay off, because Rian gasps and lets go of her thighs, dropping forward on his hands, body leaning over hers. He doesn’t stop his thrusting though, and if anything the new angle just makes it better.

As if realizing this, Rian sinks down until he’s resting on his forearms. Their bodies brush each other, and Kállos pushes up with her rips until her nipples touch his skin, electricity sparking between them. “Rian,” she whispers, just so she can taste his name, just because she likes it.

Rian makes a soft sound of pleasure in response, hips jerking into her. “Kal,” he breathes into her neck, teeth scraping her skin. She knows the feeling well—he’s letting his mer instincts take over in his search for the place to bite down. Why he doesn’t just look—see! The scar is right there! That’s where you bite every time!—she doesn’t know, but she’s not mer and guesses it’s something she won’t ever really understand.

His mouth sucks against her pulse, biting marks into the skin of her neck, and Kállos shivers at the pain, letting her breathy moans be heard. Rian likes it when she makes lots of noises.

His teeth dig in, testing. Kállos whines, pulling at Rian’s shoulders, scratching. “Fuck,” she hisses. There’s pleasure building in her cunt, and she’s going to topple over the edge soon. But she can feel Rian’s mind tangling in hers, until the lines between where her consciousness stops and his begins start to blur. He’s pulling her back from the edge, bringing her back down to meet him. “Greedy bastard,” she gasps, but she lets her pleasure be guided to a manageable level. “You know I can come more than once now, right?”

Rian bites at the soft flesh of her inner arm, a grin in his teeth. _You like it,_ he thinks.

Well, he’s not wrong.

His fingers tighten on her thighs, pushing her legs ever farther apart. His movements are getting more erratic, more desperate, as he fights to keep control. They’re both breathing hard.

Kállos’ mouth gapes open, her voice lost somewhere in the tangle of her throat, but she manages to find it so she can gasp, “Oh gods, oh, fuck, fuck me— _Rian_ —”

“Kal,” Rian grunts, his mouth back over her shoulder. She can tell neither of them is going to last much longer, especially with the way that Rian seems certain in the place of his Mark.

“I want you to come in me,” she says, voice torn, and that’s it. Rian slides in and out a few more times and clenches his jaw, teeth tearing into her skin, and she cries out. A wave of pleasure ripples from her clit through her whole body, and as it does she feels Rian bottom out, shoving his hips deeps. She can feel the way his cock pulses inside of her as he comes, and she lets out a high-pitched moan, pulling him to her with weak arms.

They lay there for a moment, Rian breathing heavily through his nose into her hair. He’s told her before how good she smells post-sex—she knows he’s savoring the scent now. Kállos feels deliciously grounded, Rian’s weight pinning her to the bed and the moment.

Eventually, when Rian has gone soft, he unhooks his jaw from her shoulder, letting out an uncomfortable breath at the ache in it. He noses her neck, then presses his tongue to the golden blood still welling from the bite. _I hurt you_.

Kállos sighs, cradling the back of Rian’s head with her hand. “I wanted it. Besides,” she adds, feeling the numbness that comes with the saliva he uses to coat the wound, _you always take care of me._

Rian nuzzles closer to her skin, kissing her softly. _I’ll always take care of you._ When they communicate through their Bond, it’s not so much through words as emotions, but Kállos gets the exact meaning. Gods, she loves him.

“Mmph,” she grunts, reluctantly pushing Rian off of her. “Let me up. I need to pee.”

Rian makes a noise of protest, trying to grab onto her.

“Stop,” she complains good-naturedly. “Do you want me to get a UTI? No? Then let me pee.”

“Fine,” Rian grumbles, settling down sleepily on their bed. He watches her with lazy eyes as she stands and stretches with a groan, then walks awkwardly into their bathroom.

“Ewww,” she calls back to him, “your jizz is dripping down my _leeegg_.” She can hear Rian laugh from the other room and smiles to herself. She loves that laugh.

When she’s done in the bathroom, she crawls in bed next to her very sleepy husband and snuggles right up to him. He immediately throws his arm over her side, sighing in contentment when he feels her skin next to his. Kállos kisses him, just so she can feel his lips again. “I love you,” she whispers.

“Oh how beautiful it is,” Rian mumbles sleepily, “to be loved by Love.”

She smiles, closing her eyes.

* * *

“Hello?” Kállos was trying to ignore her ringing phone, but a third call in a row from Apollo was enough for her to interrupt the movie she and Rian were watching. Well. They _had_ been watching it, but halfway through they’d started to get a little handsy. All of their recent movie- and TV-watching nights have ended similarly recently. Her hand was actually working its way down the front of Rian’s shorts when she sighed and picked up.

“ _He won’t answer my calls._ ”

Kállos reaches over Rian’s lap and pauses the movie, mouthing Apollo’s name to him apologetically. “What do you mean?”

Apollo sounds frantic. “ _He still hasn’t come home and he won’t answer my calls and it’s just like the time he drove to California on his own and he ended up nearly dying on the side of the highway and—_ ”

“Apollo,” Kállos interrupts firmly. “Apollo, calm down. You’re going to hurt yourself. Where are the girls?”

“ _They—they’re in the other room with Arte. I asked her to come over._ ” At least Artemis is there. Kállos breathes a little easier.

Kállos looks up at Rian, the question probing out to his mind. He nods, whispering, “Of course.”

Kállos turns her attention back to the phone call. “David, come over. Please. Let me help you.”

She doesn’t have to ask again. A second later and Apollo is in their living room, looking frantic and clutching his phone. Kállos stands and opens her arms, letting Apollo collapse into them. She staggers a bit under his weight before righting herself. He’s crying, she realizes. “David,” she whispers. “It’s going to be okay.”

“No it’s not,” he sobs, his grip tight, his hands cold. Kállos shivers. “No it’s not, I don’t know where he _is_.”

Kállos leads Apollo to the couch and sits him down. He’s shaking. “Pol, listen to me,” she says softly, taking his hand. “You’re not going to solve anything by having a panic attack. Just breathe, and talk to me. We’re going to take care of you. Rian can try to call him for you, see if he’ll answer someone else.” She pauses, unsure if she wants to ask this question right now. “Did you...did something happen between you two?”

Apollo shakes his head helplessly. “I don’t know. He called me one night on tour, sounding like he was—I don’t know, like he was in trouble, and when I showed up he was just...he was just sitting in the shower with his clothes on. And he wouldn’t let me talk to him or touch him or even _be_ there. I swear to Zeus, Mike, I didn’t do anything except show up.”

Kállos doesn’t know what to tell him. She looks up at Rian, a question simmering in the base of her skull. Rian shakes his head and shrugs, looking just as helpless as she feels. He doesn’t know what to do either. Kállos strokes Apollo’s hair and poses a new question to Rian. He seems less inclined to agree, but tells her it’s probably a good idea.

“Hey, David,” Kállos says softly. “It’s okay. Do you want me to come over tonight? Maybe stay a day or two, so you don’t have to worry about the kids and Artemis can go home?”

She expects Apollo to resist, to stubbornly refuse her offer. But he just shrugs and blankly agrees. “Sure.”

“Let me get a few things,” Kállos says, making to stand.

Rian shakes his head and stands first. “I’ll get them,” he says. _You stay with him_ , is his unspoken follow up.

She and Apollo wait while Rian pulls together a few clothes and necessities for a couple days away from home. When Rian is out of earshot, Kállos switches to Ancient Greek and speaks lowly to Apollo. “ _What happened_?”

“ _I told you_ ,” Apollo replies in the same language. “ _I told you exactly what happened_.”

“ _But what do you_ think _happened?_ ”

Apollo cuts his eyes away.

“ _Apollo, whatever it is, you need to tell me. Keeping it to yourself isn’t going to get him back_.” 

Apollo studies his hands. “ _I think_ — _I thought he said something about someone being_ — _being in his room, but I don’t know_.”

“ _Do you think someone hurt him?_ ”

“ _I don’t_ know,” Apollo says brokenly. “ _I don’t know what happened and I don’t know why he won’t talk to me._ ”

Kállos puts on her best mom voice, being as calming as she can. “ _We’ll figure it out, Apollo. We will_.”

Apollo doesn’t seem so sure, but Rian comes back a moment later and he doesn’t have time to argue his point. “Thank you,” Kállos says quietly, taking the bag Rian hands her.

Rian looks like he’d rather she didn’t go, but he shrugs as if to say _extenuating circumstances._

“We’ll finish the movie when I get back,” Kállos promises, kissing Rian quickly.

He holds onto her, cupping the side of his face with his hand. “You better come back quick then,” he says, finally letting her go, “or else I’ll finish without you.”

Kállos smiles. “I’ll be back.” She turns to Apollo. “Pol?”

Apollo stands, somehow looking like the shortest one in the room. “Yeah, okay.” He takes Kállos’ outstretched hand. “Thank you.” And they leave.

* * *

The twins are confused when she comes down to breakfast the next morning. It doesn’t take long for them to get over their surprise at the sudden visit from their Uncle Eros though, and they gleefully go off with her while Artemis takes Apollo into the other room to talk to him.

“Where are your sisters?” Kállos asks the twins.

“Vera and Yaz went to a friend’s house,” Winnie says matter-of-factly.

“Yeah!” Alex adds, wanting to be included.

They’re quickly distracted by Kállos asking about a few of their toys, and before the minute is up they’re deep in play with dolls, setting them up as a royal court about to usurp their ruler and attempt to take the throne. Their least favorite Barbie has taken the role of queen, of course. Kállos hadn’t realized how much she had missed being around and taking care of small children until she was doing it again. It’s been so long since she has been a mom—a _good_ mom, one who was actually there for her kids—and she smiles bright when Winnie hands her a doll and tells her she’s playing a lady-in-waiting.

At some point, right in the middle of an assassination attempt, Kállos hears a soft “Kal” from behind her. She looks over her shoulder to see Artemis looking tired, arms folded close to her body. Kállos tells the twins she’ll be back, she has to see what their aunt needs.

“What is it?” Kállos asks when she gets to Artemis, peering around her to see Apollo sitting slumped over at the kitchen table.

Artemis breathes in deep, letting her air out slowly. “Pol’s not—he’s not doing well.”

“And Alex?”

Artemis’ expression hardens. “The bastard won’t contact us at all. I’m going to go ask Hermes where he is after all of this.”

“What about Pol?” Kállos asks, keeping her voice low. “I can’t stay here forever.”

“I called Stra’tius earlier,” Artemis says. “He should be over in a bit. He had to go pick up Oli first.”

“Ty has her?” Kállos asks, surprised. “I thought it was Eris’ weekend.”

“She’s busy,” Artemis answers, the contempt badly concealed in her voice. “Again.”

Kállos has to fight down her anger. “You’d think she’d—” She cuts herself off. She’s not really one to speak on the whole being a bad mom department. Kállos doesn’t think Artemis has ever really forgiven her for hurting her brother and nephew like that, forty years ago or not.

Artemis gives her a measured look but doesn’t comment on her aborted sentence. “I don’t know what to do with him. Pollo, I mean.”

Kállos sighs, putting her hands on her hips and stretching out her back. Several vertebrae pop, and she lets out her breath. “I think all we can do is keep an eye on him.” She lowers her voice so the girls can’t hear her. “And try to figure out whatever the _fuck_ Alex thinks he’s doing.” She doesn’t want to say it out loud, not even to Artemis, who is surely thinking the same thing, but she’s worried. Alex hasn’t so much as opened Apollo’s texts in weeks, has gone completely radio silent. They keep getting charges to their credit card though, out in LA, so they know he’s not dead. Apollo thought he might have been at their second house, but the place had seemed unlived-in when he went and checked.

“He’s only getting worse.” Kállos doesn’t think she’s ever heard Artemis sound this worried. Granted, they’re not incredibly close, but Kállos has known Apollo’s sister for the better part of four thousand years.

“How long can Ty stay?” Kállos asks softly. Apollo needs someone to look after and someone to look after him—their son can be both of those people. He’s also old enough to take care of himself, something that Apollo and Alex’s children don’t have the ability to do yet.

“A week, maybe? His band…” Artemis trails off, shrugging.

Kállos gets it. “I can try to stay when he can’t. What are your plans like?”

“I’d cancel them all for my brother,” Artemis says tersely.

Kállos smiles. “Even if they were with Deuce?” If there’s one person Artemis might move more mountains for than her brother, it’s her wife.

Artemis’ resolve wavers. “That’s a low blow, Kal.”

There’s a clatter from the kitchen and they look over to see Apollo staring at a pile of silverware on the floor that he had been trying to put away. He doesn’t even bend over to start picking it up. Artemis makes a soft noise, turning away from Kállos without another word. She stoops and gathers the forks and spoons, saying something in their twin language, and Kállos goes back to playing with the kids.

She settles back in, surprised to find that the assassination was successful, and the girls’ toys are having a fashion show to celebrate. Winnie is more concerned with the outfits perfectly matching, while Alex just wants all of her dolls to have pretty dresses—she puts sneakers on one with a sparkly red getup.

“Uncle Eros?” Alex asks, trying to get a shoe on her Barbie, then giving up and handing it to Kállos for her to do instead.

“Yes, baby?” Kállos takes the shoe and slips it easily on, then hands the toy back.

“What happened to your face?”

Kállos presses her lips together, taken aback by the forward question. “My face?”

“Yeah,” Alex touches her own nose, pulling a nostril up in imitation of Kállos’ scarred features. “Your face.”

“I think that’s a mean question,” Winnie says in what a four-year-old approximates for a whisper.

“It’s okay,” Kállos says. “It wasn’t asked in a mean way.” She starts brushing the hair of another Barbie Alex hands her. When Winnie sees that they’re not going to get into trouble she busies herself with enacting a conversation between her two favorite dolls. “Someone very mean hurt me very badly.”

“Who?”

“Someone I used to know.”

“How did you know him?”

“We used to be...boyfriend and girlfriend.” Kállos inwardly grimaces at the gross oversimplification of her relationship with her abusive drug dealer.

“I thought you and Pa used to be boyfriend and girlfriend.”

“I met him after I met your Pa.”

“Why did he hurt you? You’re so pretty.”

Kállos smiles at the earnest way Alex speaks. She’s so young, and yet she already reminds her so much of her father, her namesake. “He was very, very mean. Don’t ever let anyone who’s mean be your boyfriend, okay? Or girlfriend,” Kállos says earnestly.

“I don’t like mean people,” Winnie pipes up. “I’ll never have a mean boyfriend.”

“I don’t want one too,” Alex agrees. “Pa says we have to be nice to people, even if we don’t like them very much. He also says we have to be nice to people when we do like them very much.”

“Pa said that when Alex pulled on my hair,” Winnie says, wanting to add to the conversation.

“Your Pa is a very smart man.”

“Why aren’t you and Pa married still?” Alex asks, apropos of nothing.

“We...decided we weren’t happy being married anymore.” The little devil sure knew how to ask questions that stung.

“But Pa still says he loves you.”

“Your Pa and I love each other very much, but it’s a different kind of love now.”

“Is that why you’re married to Uncle Rian instead?” Winnie asks. She’s started to braid the hair of one of her dolls. Alex looks over and immediately tries to do it on her own Barbie, but she hasn’t quite figured out how to do it yet and ends up just twisting a couple of hair strands together.

“Yes.” Kállos smiles. She likes talking about Rian. “Your Uncle Rian and I are very in love.”

“So you got married?” Alex asks, giving up on the braiding.

“Mmhm,” Kállos affirms, going gooey at the memory of their wedding, and the renewing of their vows several years later after she had told Rian about Kállos. Looking at the twins, she feels something within her ache. She loves being around small children. Maybe spending so much time over Apollo’s house wouldn’t be so bad after all. “Do you want me to teach you how to braid hair, Alex?”

Alex looks instantly filled with glee. “YES!”

“I want a Barbie with hair that looks like mine,” Winnie adds.

Kállos takes a look at their spread of dolls. Fair-skinned woman after fair-skinned woman—and the ones that had darker skin still had long straight hair. “I’ll find you one,” Kállos promises.

Alex gets contemplative. Then, “Uncle Eros?”

“Yes, Alex?”

“Where’s Daddy?”

Kállos feels her breath catch. “He’s—he—”

“Mom.” The relief in the voice that speaks from behind Kállos is nearly tangible.

Kállos looks up from her conversation with the twins and smiles when she recognizes who stands there. “Baby.” She stands, wrapping her arms around Ty.

Her son curls around her, holding her tight. “M’worried about dad,” he sighs.

“Me too, baby,” she says, soft. She kisses his cheek. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“I’m glad to see you. I missed you.”

Out of nowhere, a very excited voice screams, “YAYA!” and an accompanying blur comes barrelling around a corner. Oli slams into Kállos, hugging her waist.

Kállos stumbles, laughing, and hugs her granddaughter. “Hi baby. It’s good to see you.”

“We just came from Mommy’s house. She has to work this weekend and Daddy said we could come here. Do you remember what it was like to go to fifth grade? Daddy told me _some_ but he also said he didn’t go to school in America so it’s probably very different, and I’m nervous about it. Oh, are those Barbies? Can I play?” she asks, completely forgetting the rest of her questions and sitting down where Kállos had been a moment before. Alex and Winnie gleefully accept their niece’s company—she’s the cool older girl who gets to stay up until nine o’clock (ten when she’s at her mom’s).

Kállos turns her attention back to her son, taking his arm and stepping a few more feet away from the kids. “Eris?” she asks softly.

Ty looks away, shrugging. “She was busy.”

Kállos sighs softly. Now isn’t the time for this conversation. “I’m worried about your father.”

“Me too.” Ty’s eyebrows draw together, and he pulls at his lip ring with his teeth. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this bad.”

“I’m worried about him relapsing,” Kállos whispers, surprising herself with how frank she’s being. “He hasn’t—the last time he was left—” she can’t make herself finish the sentence. The last time he was left alone to take care of his kid was when she abandoned him and a ten-year-old Ty. Misplaced feelings of guilt and thinking that they were better off without her aside, it was still incredibly shitty of her. She was in the wrong, but she still can’t make her say it. Either way, it had really fucked Apollo up. He maintains that he stayed sober, but Kállos knows it wasn’t easy for him.

“I know,” Ty says, one of his eyes squinting in that way of his that means he has more to say but isn’t going to. “You...Alex is different. Was different.”

“ _Is_ different,” Kállos insists. “He’s going to come home. And we just have to help your father out until he does.”

“I hope you’re right,” Ty murmurs, looking over her shoulder at the kids playing together. “For their sake.”

* * *

Early the next morning, Kállos leaves Apollo in his son’s care and goes home. They haven’t made much headway. She curses Alex for leaving, feeling like a hypocrite as she does. A dirty, miserable hypocrite.

Rian notices her sour mood immediately. “Angel? What’s wrong?”

Kállos feels tears spring to her eyes, unbidden. “I was such a shitty mom, Ri. And a shitty wife. I was so shitty. And I just—we’re mad— _I’m_ mad about Alex doing the exact same fucking thing I did.”

“Kal,” Rian says softly. He shifts on the couch, and she sits down next to him. She doesn’t look at him though, feeling shame burn nauseatingly in her stomach.

“I’m not a good _person_ , Ri,” Kállos chokes. Rian doesn’t try to touch her, for which she’s glad. She doesn’t think she could handle something like that. “I keep fucking everything up and then judge other people when they do the same thing.”

“Sounds reasonably human to me,” Rian says, keeping his voice a low, soothing tone.

“I’m _not_ human,” Kállos spits back, bitter. “I’m a literal _god_ you think I’d manage to have my fucking _shit_ together.”

Rian reaches out and touches the side of her hand with his pinkie. Her body is shaking and she focuses on the contact. “The Greeks always personified you as pretty human in my opinion. Just with a lot more power and a _lot_ more pettiness.” He smiles. “Something that has definitely not changed in the last couple thousand years.”

Kállos laughs despite herself, then quickly sobers. “But that’s—that’s another thing. Another thing I’m a hypocrite about. I’m such a petty _bitch_ and yet I get all huffy when my mom or dad or whoever does the same thing. I can’t do _anything_ right.”

“You’re doing this pretty right,” Rian says.

Kállos looks at him. “Doing what? C-crying?”

“Talking about how you feel. Being aware of your own impact on others.”

“But it’s not enough, is it,” Kállos says, her vision blurring with a fresh wave of tears. Her head pounds. “It’s not enough t-to know that what you’re doing is—is shitty. You have to—to something about it and I’m n-not _doing_ anything.” She coughs, crying so hard her lungs can’t keep up.

Rian finally leans forward, concerned, and puts a hand on her back. “Angel, shh, calm down. You’re going to make yourself sick.”

“I c-can’t _calm down_ , Rian,” Kállos snaps. “It’s not that—that fucking easy.”

“I’m just trying to hel—”

“Well stop!” Kállos interrupts him. “Stop it! It’s not w-worth it. Stop _trying,_ you’re not going to fix m-me. I’m too—too broken for that.” She coughs, gagging. Kállos puts a hand over her mouth. “I think I’m going to throw up,” she manages to gasp.

“Kal—”

She shakes her head, standing, and stumbles to the downstairs bathroom. Her knees hit the tile painfully and she clutches the rim of the toilet, retching. Rian is by her side in an instant, smoothing her hair out of her face and pulling it back out of the way.

Kállos heaves, her throat convulsing, and spits up the rest of her breakfast. She’s still crying, overwhelmed with her emotions and being sick and feeling like garbage.

Rian kisses her shoulder, making soothing sounds, and eventually her stomach settles enough that she wipes her mouth and slumps against the wall, feeling spent. She’s too exhausted to keep crying. Rian crosses his legs, waiting.

“I’m sorry,” Kállos eventually croaks. “You don’t deserve all that.”

“Thank you.” Rian pauses. “But it’s okay.”

“It’s not _oka_ —”

“Kal, baby, listen to me. It is okay. It’s okay because I know you’re a good person, deep down and on the surface and all the places in between. You don’t really mean it when you tell me to fuck off or that you don’t want me to talk to you. I know you too well for that.”

Kállos sniffs, clearing her throat. Her mouth tastes like sewage.

“I also know that, whatever you’ve done in your past, you’re a good person _now_. You’re a really good wife. You’re a really good _mom_. Do you think Ty would be so happy to see you if you weren’t? You are changing your behavior. You’re bettering yourself. And because of that you’re aware enough to know that those past behaviors are bad. You’re aware enough to know that Alex—” He stops, as if unwilling to badmouth one of his best friends.

“That Alex is being a steaming pile of dick shit?” Kállos offers weakly.

Rian snorts softly. “Yes. You know that because you’ve learned.” He shifts, settling his body next to hers.

She melts into his side, breathing in that familiar morning scent that still smells faintly of sleep. “You sound like me.”

“Like you?”

“Like a licensed counselor.”

“Maybe I’ve picked up a few things in the years that I’ve known you.” Rian strokes her hair. “I love you, Kállos. I love you more than anything in the whole world.”

Kállos can feel in her heart that he means it. She can intuitively sense love, so the feeling isn’t unusual. With Rian though, it’s stronger, more beautiful. She’s not sure if it’s because she loves him back so fiercely, or because of their Bond. All she knows is that she didn’t even feel this way about Apollo, and for so long she was convinced theirs was a love to transcend millenia. Rian is more whatever they had. “I love you,” she whispers back, “even more than that.”

Rian shakes his head. “Impossible,” he protests.

“I’m made of love, remember? I _am_ Love. I think I win.”

Rian kisses her temple. “For now.”

* * *

Kállos wakes up one morning a couple weeks later feeling absolutely ready to puke her guts out.

She stumbles into the bathroom and retches into the toilet, trying to hold her hair back and not get vomit everywhere at the same time. She’s annoyed at Rian for not helping her for half a second until she remembers he said he was going to go to the gym early this morning. He’s not even home. Usually she’d go with him, but she’d been feeling so exhausted and all around gross recently that she wanted to take the morning off.

Gagging again, Kállos lurches further over the toilet bowl, trying to spit out the awful taste in her mouth. This is honestly the worst way to wake up. It reminds her of awful hangovers, the kind only the seventies could bring, and waking up in hotel rooms she didn’t remember entering.

Kállos presses her head to the side of the toilet, breathing deep. She feels like absolute _garbage_. She has no idea why she should be feeling this shitty lately. She hasn’t had any crazy food recently, hasn’t made any changes to her diet. And it’s not that she’s ready to change back to Eros; her body doesn’t hurt the way it does when it’s trying to snap itself into another form. Honestly, the last time she felt like this it was 1976 and she was—

Her eyes open. Oh. _Oh._ Oh no.

Kállos stumbles to her feet, hand pressed to her abdomen. She stares at herself in the mirror, but of course she wouldn’t be able to—

Nearly without thinking she finds herself in the living room, looking for her wallet. She doesn’t find it so snags a twenty out of Rian’s instead, and teleports to the nearest Walgreens.

It’s not until her bare feet hit the tile that she realizes she forgot to put on shoes. She doesn’t give it a second thought though, heading right to the isle with the condoms and tampons and—and—

Kállos frantically slams the box down on the counter, her muscles shaking. The kid working the register gives her the once over, smiling knowingly to himself and scanning the box. Kállos is sure she looks a mess, hair unbrushed and still in her pajamas, but she could literally not give less of a fuck. “Will this be all?” the cashier asks, not at all trying to contain his judgemental glee.

“Yes,” Kállos snaps, slamming the money down on the counter and waiting impatiently for her change.

“Good luck,” the cashier says in faux sincerity, dropping coins into her outstretched palm.

“Thanks,” Kállos says dryly. She crumples the change in her hand, snatches up the box, and disappears. Maybe that’ll freak the kid out. He deserves it.

It doesn’t take long to read the instructions. Honestly the part that takes the longest is trying to convince herself to pee. She’s too nervous, every muscle in her body tense and tight. It takes a couple minutes for Kállos to convince herself to relax enough to finally start peeing, and immediately after everything in her seizes up again.

Kállos stares at the stick, one hand in her hair, leg bouncing nervously. Kállos can feel every second tick by like an eternity, although it doesn’t take long for the second line to appear. She breathes out shakily. She’s—this isn’t—Hera was supposed to take away—

Kállos shoves the test back in the box and hides it in one of her shoes. She doesn’t—she doesn’t want Rian to find out before she’s ready to tell him.

“Fuck,” she hisses, trembling. “Fuck.” She feels frozen in shock and fear. What is she supposed...she needs—

Kállos nearly drops her phone trying to dial it. “Pick up pick up pick up,” she chants under her breath.

“ _Hello?_ ” says a voice on the other end.

“Mom,” Kállos gasps, “Mom can you come over. Please.”

“ _Baby_ ,” Aphrodite says, sighing. “ _I just got out of the shower. I had brunch earlier with_ —”

“ _Mom_.”

“ _Sweetheart, I’m not even dressed_.”

“Neither am I,” Kállos says, trying to keep her voice even. “Please.”

“ _Can this wait until_ —”

“Mom I’m pregnant.”

The other end of the line is very quiet. After a moment, Aphrodite cautiously asks, “ _Are you sure?_ ”

“Yes,” Kállos practically whispers. “Please come over.”

There’s a half beat of silence. “ _Give me five minutes_ ,” Aphrodite says. “ _I’ll be right over._ ”

True to her word, Kállos’ mother shows up no more than five minutes later, looking just the right amount of calm that she desperately needs right now. Kállos meets her in the living room. “Mom,” she says brokenly.

Aphrodite holds out her arms, and Kállos folds herself into them gratefully. “I’m here, sweetheart.”

“Thank you,” Kállos rasps.

“Of course, baby. Do you want to sit down?”

Kállos nods, sniffing. She squeezes next to her mom’s side on the couch, laying her head on Aphrodite’s chest and listening to her breathing, the familiar perfume working wonders on her anxiety.

The moment can’t last forever though. Aphrodite strokes Kállos’ hair and then leans back to look into her face. “Do you know for sure?”

Kállos clears her throat. She can feel a headache coming on. “Yeah.”

“Did you—”

“I took a test.”

“Where is it?” Aphrodite asks, looking around.

“It’s upstairs,” Kállos answers. “I...put it in my shoe.”

Aphrodite gives her a funny look. “Your shoe?”

“I didn’t want anyone seeing it,” Kállos says bashfully. She pops up to her room quickly, appearing back downstairs within ten seconds. She pulls it back out of the box. “Look.”

Aphrodite glances at the pregnancy test in her daughter’s outstretched hand, then back up to her face. “Sweetheart, you—”

“Hera was supposed to take away my fertility,” Kállos interrupts, shaky. “I went to her, in eighty-seven, because it wasn’t like I could go to Leto, and said I couldn’t have any more kids, not with how my life was, and she said she’d—she took care of it. She—mom, I slept with so many guys in the nineties.” Her ears are hot, and she stares at her lap. She doesn’t like to think about that decade. Mostly because she can’t remember most of it through the drug-induced haze she was under. “I never—I haven’t been pregnant since Ty.”

Aphrodite is quiet, her presence soothing, giving space for her daughter to go on.

Kállos does, adding, “I don’t know why it happened again. It hasn’t before and it seemed like Hera was okay with my request. Hera—she—” She falls silent, at a loss.

“What did you say to her? Exactly, if you can remember,” Aphrodite says.

“Just—I just didn’t want to get pregnant again. I said I couldn’t keep doing this, I couldn’t have another baby like this,” Kállos recalls, closing her eyes in her attempt to capture the memory.

“You said it like that?” Aphrodite asks.

“Yeah. I think so.” Kállos opens her eyes. “Why?”

“Well, you’re not ‘like this’ anymore, are you,” Aphrodite answers, not really a question. “She probably restored your fertility once you were sober.”

Kállos stares at her mother. “But—why didn’t she _ask_ me, or even just decide to let me know that hey, I know you think you’re not going to get pregnant if you have unprotected sex but _joke’s on you I like to screw with your body when you’re not looking!_ ” She starts to sound a little hysterical by the end of her sentence, her chest getting tight again.

“Baby,” Aphrodite soothes, “calm down, it’s okay. Take some deep breaths for me.” She smiles wryly as Kállos fights to control her breathing. “Besides, you know how petty we can be.”

Kállos presses the heel of her palm to one of her eyes, breathing in deep through her nose. “Yeah,” she says weakly. She currently fucking hates the pantheon.

Aphrodite is silent for another few moments, pressing her lips together. “Baby,” she says at last, “what do you want from me? What can I do?”

Kállos finds herself tearing up. “I don’t know,” she chokes. “I just wanted my mom.”

“Oh, sweetheart.” Aphrodite wraps her arms around her. She pulls Kállos close, tucking her head to her breast and patting her hair. “Shh, it’ll be okay, shhh.”

“I’m scared,” Kállos sobs. “I’m so scared. I was such a b-bad mom last time, and I don’t think Rian even wants to have kids, and I don’t— _mom_.” She breaks down even further, squeezing Aphrodite as hard as she can.

“Baby,” Aphrodite says tightly, a little breathless. Kállos is very strong. She loosens her grip. “It’ll be okay. Rian loves you very much and he will do whatever it takes to help you, alright?”

Kállos nods, hiccoughing. “Alright.”

“What do you want to do in the meantime?” Aphrodite asks gently.

“Just...sit,” Kállos says through her tears. “Please.”

Aphrodite nods and rubs her back. After a few seconds she starts humming an old lullaby. Kállos feels herself calm down almost immediately. She closes her eyes and listens to the vibration of the song in her mother’s chest until she’s stopped crying completely, the last of her shaky breaths finally evening out.

“How do you feel?” Aphrodite murmurs eventually.

“Better,” Kállos mumbles. “Thank you for coming.”

“Of course sweetheart. Always.” Her mom presses her lips to the top of her head, pulling her hair to the side to air out her neck. Kállos hadn’t realized she was sweating until then.

They sit like that for a few minutes, Kállos curled into her mother’s side, until they hear the sound of the front door unlocking. Kállos looks up, all of her panic back in abundance. “Ri’s home,” she rasps.

Aphrodite pats her hand reassuringly. “It’ll be okay. Just tell him.”

“Mom—” Kállos doesn’t have time to finish her sentence before Rian rounds the corner.

He freezes when he sees the two women, his wife looking like a puffy crying mess, and her mom giving him a stern once-over. “Um. I’m home. Hello,” he says cordially to Aphrodite. “Why are you—when did you get here?”

“A few minutes ago,” Aphrodite says, glancing at Kállos. She makes a _go on_ face.

Rian looks at Kállos. “Angel. You didn’t tell me your mom was coming over.”

“I didn’t know until about two minutes before she got here,” Kállos croaks. Her hands are folded tightly over the pregnancy test, hoping that if she wishes hard enough it’ll disappear and she won’t even need it. It unfortunately stays in her lap.

“Is...something wrong?” Rian asks. He looks very concerned. “Angel?”

Kállos stands, fidgeting. “I have—news,” she says awkwardly.

Rian’s eyes cut between the two women. “What happened?” He must think someone _died_ , she’s acting so strange.

“I…” Kállos chokes. She can’t make herself say it. She can’t. It’s too much. He’s going to hate it, he’s going to hate her, he’s going to—

“Kal, baby,” Aphrodite says, obviously noticing that her daughter looks on the verge of tears again. “It’s okay.”

“Kal,” Rian says, stepping up to her and placing a hand on her arm. “You can tell me.”

Kállos wishes she could calm her thoughts and just _think_ it at Rian, but they’re racing so fast and jerkily that’s not even she can read them. “I—” she tries again. _Fuck it,_ she thinks, and she grabs Rian’s hand and shoves the pregnancy test into it.

Rian looks confused for several seconds, looking from her to the stick in his hand like he has no idea what he’s looking at. “What is…” he trails off, finally absorbing what he holds in his hands. “What is this?” he asks, looking up at her. His eyes search hers desperately. “Is this—are you—?” He doesn’t seem to be able to finish his sentences either.

Kállos nods. “Yeah,” she squeaks, “I am.”

She holds her breath, waiting for—for something, she’s not sure what. She has no idea how Rian is going to react.

To her immeasurable relief, the softest smile she has ever seen spreads across his handsome face. “Really?” he asks, voice gentle.

Kállos nods again.

“Oh my god, _angel_ —” Rian doesn’t seem to know what else to say. He just wraps his arms around her neck and pulls her close. Kállos sinks into his embrace, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath of his familiar smell. She feels instantly calmer. He is holding her so gently.

“You’re not mad?” Kállos can’t help but whisper.

Rian looks down at her. “Why would I be mad? It’s not like you did this on your own,” he jokes.

“No, and she will _continue_ to not do this on her own,” Aphrodite speaks up from the couch.

Rian clears his throat. “No, of course not.” Kállos can sense the faintest scent of fear from his skin, and she smiles to herself.

“Mom, stop threatening my husband,” she says, leaning even farther into Rian’s chest.

“It’s my job, sweetheart,” Aphrodite responds. She raises her perfectly plucked eyebrows at the two of them. “I take it that you don’t need me anymore?”

Kállos detaches herself from Rian and embraces her mother instead. “I’ll always need my mom,” she says, but then she tilts her head in agreement. “But I know I called you out of nowhere, and I’ve calmed down some. You’re welcome to stay longer, but…”

“I can stop by for dinner,” Aphrodite offers. “Do you want me to tell your father?”

“About dinner, or about…?”

Aphrodite shakes her head. “Dinner. I’ll let you tell him about the baby.”

Kállos feels a little thrill go through her at the word _baby_. “Okay. Rian will make something.”

“ _Hey._ ”

Aphrodite laughs, crystalline. “I’ll hold you to it.” She hugs Kállos again, kissing her cheek. “I’ll see you tonight.”

“Bye mom,” Kállos says, watching her mother hug Rian and then wave before disappearing in a wave of pearlescent glow.

“Now I have to go to the store,” Rian groans. “We don’t have any food in the house.”

Kállos makes a face. “Not like that you’re not. Shower, now.”

Rian gives her a cheeky grin. “Only if you come with me.”

“You drive a hard bargain, mister,” Kállos says, sidling up to him.

“Mmhm,” Rian hums, kissing her briefly. “You’re an expert negotiator, so I have to be on my toes.”

Kállos sighs in content. “More showering, less kissing,” she says. “You smell.”

Rian laughs and squeezes her ass. “After you.”

* * *

Later that night, after a successful dinner where Ares had managed to only break _one_ glass, Kállos lays in bed, braiding and unbraiding a section of her hair.

“Hey,” Rian says, climbing in bed next to her, “why are you frowning?”

Kállos forces her face to relax. “I’m not frowning.”

Rian grins and kisses her cheek. “You were.” When she’s silent for a moment he grows more serious. “Is something wrong?”

“Do you want to even have a baby?” Kállos blurts, then immediately regrets it.

Rian looks taken aback. “Do you not?”

“No—yes—I don’t know—I always thought you didn’t,” Kállos stutters. “You always said that—that you were okay with no kids so I thought you didn’t want them, and I don’t—you don’t have—if you don’t want a baby—”

“Angel,” Rian says, soft. “Calm down.” He holds out her arms and she scoots into them automatically. He kisses the top of her head. “It was true what I said at the time,” he says at last. “I _was_ okay with not having kids. I didn’t need anyone else other than you to make my life feel complete.”

“But—”

“ _But_ ,” Rian cuts her off, speaking gently, “now that that’s changed, I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Do you promise?” Kállos whispers.

“I promise,” Rian whispers back.

“Promise promise?”

“Promise promise,” Rian agrees. “Promise as much as when I promised to love you forever on our wedding day.”

“That’s a lot of promise,” Kállos says, smiling.

“It sure is.” Rian kisses her forehead, then the tip of her nose, then her lips.

Kállos kisses him back, letting all of her anxieties and fears be absorbed into his skin. She honestly doesn’t know what she would do without him. “I love you,” she says, throat tight. “I love you so much.”

“You are my only one,” Rian says as way of _I love you too_ , and it burns with how much it means.

Kállos feels herself tearing up. “Stop talking about our wedding you bastard, you’re going to make me cry again,” she chokes. It will always make her emotional to remember that he turned his vows into—in her opinion—All Time Low’s best love song.

Rian chuckles and kisses her again. She sucks on his lip, palm on the side of his face. His hand moves to the small of her back, pulling her close.

Kállos throws her leg over Rian’s lap, her hair curtaining their kiss. His hands go to her waist, thumbs pressing into the junction of leg and hip. “Rian,” she whispers. “Rian.”

He doesn’t say anything back, doesn’t have to. She can hear what he says in his brain, and her Mark aches with every thought he gifts her. She bites his lip, hard, and his hands go tight on her hips. He bites back, harder, and she grunts, grinding herself down into his lap, begging. Rian’s hands slide up her ribs, thumbs pressing on the undersides of her breasts. Her breath catches when she sees the way he looks at her, like she’s the most beautiful thing he ever has or ever will see. She wants him.

She pulls off her nightgown.

* * *

A few days pass, after which Kállos has calmed down enough to finally feel like she’s not going to implode every time Rian looks at her. Now she just feels like she’s going to melt into a puddle of lovey goop. She keeps seeing him giving her soft looks out of the corner of her eye.

“Stop,” she says at one point, kissing his cheek.

“Stop what?” he asks, chasing her lips.

“Stop looking at me like that.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rian insists, grinning.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“You can’t prove anything without a lawyer.”

Kállos laughs. She’s in a supremely good mood. “Hey, let’s go to Jack’s. I wanna tell him.”

Rian looks surprised. “I thought you would have already.”

“No,” Kállos says. “Just you and mom currently.”

“Well in that case, yeah, let’s—” but whatever Rian says is cut off as Kállos teleports over to the Barakats’ place, too excited to wait for a single second.

Kállos finds Jack in his kitchen, opening the fridge. “Jack!” she yells, startling him so badly he nearly drops the carton of orange juice in his hand.

“Jesus Christ!” he yells back, spinning. “What the fucking shit hell fuck!”

“Jack!” she says again, grinning so hard it hurts. Her eyes widen. “Wait, I forgot Rian.” She teleports back home, grabs Rian’s wrist, and takes them back to the Barakats. Jack is still standing in his kitchen, clutching the edge of the counter like he’s afraid he might pass out.

Rian is laughing. “Jesus, Kal, I thought you were going to leave me across the country all by myself.”

“I came back,” Kállos defends herself. She feels breathless with excitement.

By this point, Zack has appeared in the door of the kitchen. They’ve certainly made enough noise to attract his attention, and Kállos is sure that Jack had called him in through their Bond. Zack eyes her stomach, then catches her gaze, questioning. Kállos flushes. He can already smell it, the changes in her hormones.

“You couldn’t have called?” Jack asks weakly, finally setting down the orange juice. “Jesus. I thought I was going to die.”

“We have very important news,” Rian says. “Can I have a glass of orange juice?”

“Sure,” Jack says, “why not? Just show up in my house unannounced, drink all my juice, give me a heart attack, who cares? It’s not like I was just cramped up in a bus with you for five months and didn’t want to see your ugly mug for another couple of weeks at the _soonest_.” He’s joking though, and he pulls a glass from the cabinet and pours it as he speaks.

“What is the news?” Zack asks quietly, his voice straining. It’s weak from overuse on tour.

Kállos is practically vibrating with excitement. “I’m—we—I’m going to have a baby,” she says breathlessly.

Jack doesn’t seem to hear her at first, or at least not process what she’s said. “Oh, congrat—” he pauses, hand outstretched to Rian with the orange juice. Rian reaches forward and plucks it out of his grasp. “What,” Jack says, voice high.

“I’m pregnant,” Kállos says, biting back a smile.

“You’re _what_ ,” Jack shrills, looking for all the world like he’s going to pass out, for real this time.

“Preg—”

“ _Pregnant!_ ” Jack shouts, grabbing her shoulders and staring her down. “You’re pregnant!”

Kállos laughs as Jack shakes her. “Yes, you dumb fuck.”

“Oh my god,” Jack says, mouth open. “Oh my _god._ ” He crushes her in his arms, hugging her tight. Kállos hugs back. “You’re gonna have a _baby_ ,” Jack says, voice tight. He sounds emotional. Suddenly he pulls back and holds her at arm’s length, his face twisted in disgust. “Eww, that means you guys had _sex_.”

Rian chokes on a laugh into his orange juice. “Jesus, Jack.”

Kállos rolls her eyes. “You are the most immature man I have ever met in my life.”

“I don’t know,” Jack says, “you’ve also met Alex, and he—uh.” He cuts himself off, looking regretful. Silence falls.

Jack makes quick eye contact with Zack, obviously telling him something he doesn’t want heard aloud. Zack blinks at him, then turns his attention back to Kállos. “Your child,” he says softly.

“Uh, yes.” Kállos isn’t sure where this is going. She watches Zack slowly cross the room, wordless, and kneel in front of her. Kállos doesn’t move, watching as he gently puts a hand on her stomach, then leans close and lays the side of his head next to his hand, as though he’s listening for a heartbeat he won’t yet hear. He murmurs a few words in Mer, then kisses her lower stomach, soft. Zack stands, pulling Kállos close and resting their foreheads together, still speaking Mer. Kállos closes her eyes, overwhelmed.

When Zack steps back, Rian clears his throat. “What did that mean?” he asks.

Zack turns his eyes on Rian, gaze as steady and serious as ever. “A blessing for your child,” he says in his raspy voice. “May he grow strong and healthy.”

“We won’t actually know the sex for a while,” Kállos interjects, always ready to fight over pronouns. “Not until about twenty weeks.”

Zack gives a soft, knowing smile, and doesn’t say anything else.

* * *

Apollo answers the door looking very tired. “Mike?” he asks. “What are you doing here?”

Kállos can barely contain her smile, squeezing Rian’s hand. “Can we come in? We have news.”

Apollo shrugs and steps back, letting them in. Kállos’ heart is racing. She turns and faces Apollo as he closes the door. “I hope you don’t mind, but I invited your son over as well.”

Apollo frowns in confusion. “Ty? Why?”

“You’ll see in a second,” she says breezily. She feels giddy.

“Do you want to sit down?” Rian asks her softly, hand on the small of her back.

Kállos rolls her eyes. “I’m not dying, Ri, I’m—” she cuts herself off, looking at Apollo. He doesn’t seem to be paying much attention. “Pol,” she says gently.

Apollo drags his attention back to his company. “Huh?”

“Where are the girls? Are they here?”

“They’re staying with my sister for the weekend,” he replies, sounding completely and utterly exhausted. 

Despite her excitement, Kállos feels worry drum at her ribs. “You’re home alone?”

Apollo shrugs and doesn’t answer.

Kállos doesn’t have time to say anything else before the doorbell rings again. On auto-pilot, Apollo opens the door again. “Hello?”

“Hey dad.” Ty steps in, giving him an uncertain smile. He makes an aborted move to give his father a hug, then goes in for one anyway. Apollo seems absent from his own body as he hugs back.

“Mom,” Ty says, wrapping his long lanky body around hers. His hugs are all-enveloping.

“Hey baby,” Kállos murmurs. She loves her child so much. She feels joy shoot through her. She loves her _children_ so much.

“Where are the girls?” Ty asks Apollo.

“Staying with Arte for the weekend,” Kállos replies. “I already asked him.” She makes worried eye contact with her son. Apollo is acting strange, like he’s regressing into old behaviors. She hopes he’s not. She knows how he gets when he drinks.

Ty gives her a level gaze back. They’ll talk about it later.

Apollo finally seems to drag his mind to the conversation they’re having. “What did you want to tell us?”

“Let’s go sit down first,” Rian suggests.

They settle themselves in the living room. Kállos takes Rian’s hand. Her cheeks ache from all the smiles she can’t contain.

Ty drums his fingers anxiously on the arm of the couch. Kállos knows he’d be playing with the tangle toy in his pocket if it weren’t for the fact that Alex had given it to him and they’re all more than a little pissed off at Alex right now. Ty looks between his parents. “So what’s up?”

Kállos can’t hold it in any longer. “I’m pregnant!” she blurts, bouncing a little in her seat.

Ty is the first to react, his hands immediately going still. “You’re—” his eyes flicker between her and Rian. “You’re—”

Apollo reacts more slowly, shock radiating off of him in lethargic waves. “You’re pregnant?” he asks slowly. “But—how—”

“We had sex,” Kállos says dryly, grinning in glee at the disgusted face Ty makes.

“ _Mom.”_

Apollo shakes his head. “No, but you weren’t supposed—”

Kállos shrugs. “Gods.”

Apollo has been around long enough to accept that as an answer and does a bit of a mental reset. “You’re—”

“Going to have a baby!” Kállos squeals. She stands up when Ty does, holding out her arms for the hug that he practically tackles her with.

“I’m going to be a brother!” Ty says, squeezing tighter.

“Yes,” Kállos says, laughing. “You are.”

When she lets her son go she sees Apollo is standing as well, with the first genuine smile on his face in weeks. Out of the corner of her eye she sees Ty embrace Rian, doing the manly fist-clasp-one-armed-hug-back-pat that men do.

Apollo wraps his arms around her too, gentler than their son had. “ _Congratulations_ ,” Apollo whispers in Ancient Greek. He sounds close to tears.

Kállos holds him back, tight. “ _Thank you_ ,” she says, soft.

Apollo kisses the top of her head and then holds her out at arms length to smile at her again. “I’m so happy for you two.”

“Thank you,” Rian says, wrapping his arm around Kállos’ waist. She leans instinctively into his side. “We’re really excited.”

“Who else have you told?” Ty asks eagerly.

“She told her mom first,” Rian says in faux-bitterness.

Kállos swats his arm. “It was my _mom_. You were second to know. Just Jack and Zack,” she adds, answering her son’s question. “And now you guys.”

“Are you going to tell anyone else?” Ty demands. “Like, the rest of the world?” Ty isn’t being hyperbolic; they’re definitely famous enough that it would get that far.

Rian shrugs. “We’re not sure yet. We were thinking of waiting a little while, but we also don’t see why we should.”

“We just definitely wanted to tell you in person,” Kállos adds. “Oh, and we wanted to invite you to dinner. We’re taking Jack and Zack out to Chili’s tomorrow evening and are extending the invitation to you as well.”

Ty snorts. “Of course Chili’s.”

“Stop it,” Kállos says plaintively, “you know I love it there. I’m pregnant; leave me alone and let me eat where I want.”

“I’ll be there,” Apollo says. Kállos smiles brightly.

“Well now I guess I have to too,” Ty says. He cracks his knuckles, fidgeting. “Eris will be insulted if I don’t invite her.”

“You’re not even married anymore,” Kállos complains. She really just wants this to be a gathering of people she _likes._ She brightens. “Oh! Bring Juliet.”

Ty’s face dissolves into embarrassment. “Mom, stop. We’re like, barely dating. Besides, then Eris will _really_ be pissed.”

“She definitely knows better than you whether or not you should bring Juliet,” Rian laughs. He squeezes her waist. Kállos didn’t think it was possible, but she feels even happier.

“Listen to your mother,” Apollo says, the ghost of a smile on his lips. “Eris will know better than to be bitter about this.”

Ty grins. “Then I’ll be there.”

“And?” Kállos prompts.

He groans. “And I’ll invite Juliet.”

“Good. Now come give your mother a hug.” And like a good son he does just that.

* * *

“Ow,” Kállos says, making a face. She’s laying on her stomach in bed, topless. One wing is stretched out in Rian’s lap, where he’s pulled at a feather that wasn’t ready to be preened.

“Sorry,” Rian says, smoothing the feather back down. “This is hard.”

“Now you know why I don’t like to do it,” Kállos mumbles into the quilt.

“Much better when you get your husband to do it instead, hm,” Rian hums.

“Oh yes. I’m much too pregnant to do it myself.”

Rian chuckles, twisting the tiny gold feathers gently between his fingers. “Because ten weeks is incredibly pregnant.”

“It is,” Kállos insists, turning her head to look at him. “Have _you_ ever been ten weeks pregnant?”

“No.”

“Exactly,” she says. “So you have no room to talk.”

“But I am a doctor.”

She rolls her eyes. “Not _that_ kind of doctor.”

“Dr. Dawson.”

“That’s me.”

“No, I—” he laughs. “You’re impossible you argue with.”

“Never argue with a pregnant woman,” Kállos says. “You will lose.”

Rian strokes at her wing. “Give me the other one.”

“I don’t wanna move, I’m too—”

“Kal, baby, I swear to _god._ ”

“I’m comfortable!” she whines.

“You’re a _slug._ ”

“I’m _pregnant_.” But she sits up, knee-walking to Rian’s other side. She stops halfway, hands on his thighs, and leans in to kiss him.

Rian makes an appreciative noise, hands on her ribs, but he pushes her away after a second. She whines a little, and he sighs. “Angel, keep kissing me like that and I’ll never get to your other wing.”

“Maybe that was the point,” she pouts, but she lays back down and stretches out her other wing. Rian goes to work, fingers running through her feathers, looking for ones ready to come out.

Kállos is nearly asleep by the time he’s done, her wing heavy in Rian’s lap. She feels happy and safe and taken care of.

“Kal,” Rian says softly, fingers to her shoulder.

“Mmph.”

He brushes the juncture of her wings where they meet her back and she comes to, tingling a little at the sensitive touch. “I understand if you’re too tired, but you are one hundred percent welcome to start kissing me again.”

“ _Mmph_ ,” she repeats, a little perkier. She furls her wings, and they sink down to her back, and then farther, _into_ her back, feathers fading to a tattoo-like shadow and then disappearing altogether. She grunts as she pushes herself up onto her arms, leaning heavily into Rian. Her lips meet his sloppily.

Rian relaxes against the headboard, pulling Kállos into his lap. His hands splay over her back, running across her skin, palms caressing her sides, thumbs tracing the curves under her breasts.

Kállos’ limbs feel too heavy to do anything too exciting, so she just focuses on Rian’s hands on her body and the way his mouth moves slowly under hers. “Mm,” she sighs. “I like kissing you.”

Rian noses her cheek. “I like kissing you too.”

“Let’s not stop then,” Kállos murmurs, sucking on his lip.

Rian’s grip on her sides tightens momentarily before his hands relax again. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispers.

“You’re just saying that because you’re trying to get laid.”

Rian laughs. “No, I mean it.” He grows serious. “But if I was, would it be working?”

Kállos snorts. “Gods, why are you so horny all the time?”

“Look at you,” Rian whispers. “How could I not be? Besides, you didn’t answer my question.”

“I just took a shower.”

“Still not an answer. I think you owe me for the preening.”

“The payment for the preening is the joy of my presence and the nurturing of our unborn child.” She reaches forward and rubs him through his sweatpants anyway.

Rian bites his lip, tilting his head back. “Babe—”

“I’m gonna blow you,” she says, then smiles. “Final answer.”

“You locking that one in?” Rian asks, hips stuttering into her touch when she slides her hand down the front of his pants.

“Locked,” Kállos says, wrapping her hand around his mostly soft dick, “and loaded.”

Rian groans, lifting his hips so she can pull his pants down. His hand immediately curls in the back of her hair, before she’s even started the blowjob. She tilts her head into his grip, biting her lip. “You want it?”

“Please,” Rian rasps. “It would be super extra great of you and I’d owe you a favor.”

Kállos hums and dips her head, licking the side of his dick, sucking on his balls, feeling him get harder in her hand. Rian moans softly. _Zriluuqki._

Kállos feels a content sense of belonging thrum through her. “You know you can call me that at other times,” she teases. “Doesn’t have to be when we’re fucking.” _Deluuqki,_ she adds, just to be a tease.

“Uh huh,” Rian says, sounding distracted.

Kállos wraps her lips around the head of Rian’s cock and runs her tongue over the top. Rian makes a high-pitched noise that she would have teased him for if they weren’t both prone to making embarrassing noises in bed.

She pulls off and spits on his dick, holding eye contact with her mate as she drools on him, and then sucks him back into her mouth. She presses her tongue to the underside of his dick, hollowing her cheeks.

Rian’s hand tightens in her hair, tugging her down gently. She follows his lead, breathing evenly through her nose and feeling the head of his cock hit the back of her throat.

“Your mouth feels so good,” Rian pants, hips pushing up into her mouth.

 _I know_ , Kállos thinks at him.

“Don’t be cocky.”

Kállos snorts and has to pull off because she chokes on his dick. “Cocky,” she gasps, “oh my gods, that’s hilarious. Because I’m sucking your cock.”

“Not right now you’re not,” Rian grumbles.

Kállos rolls her eyes at him. “Shut up and be grateful you’re getting head.” She goes down on him again, this time relaxing her throat and taking him as deeply as she can. Rian cries out, hand back in her hair. He pulls her down farther and her eyes water a little. With one hand she starts to fondle his balls and Rian chokes out, “oh, _fuck,_ babe.” Kállos starts to bobs her head, finally getting into a rhythm.

Before long, Rian is groaning on her name. “Kal—fuck—I’m going to come soon.”

Kállos just keeps blowing him, slurping obscenely at his dick. She is equally turned on by the whole ordeal, feels wet between her legs. Rian isn’t the only one enjoying this. She pulls off just long enough to pant, “Come in my mouth and I’ll swallow it,” before licking up his dick and going down with it in her mouth.

Rian groans, jerking his hips up into the wet warmth of her mouth. “I’m coming,” he gasps, his other hand finally joining the first in her hair and holding her head down on his cock as he comes down her throat.

Kállos just closes her eyes and swallows like she said she would, jerking him through the last of his orgasm with one hand. When Rian seems spent she pulls off and opens her eyes to look up at him. His lips are parted, his stomach sucking in air. Kállos decides she really _really_ loves his post-orgasm face.

“Holy shit,” he croaks.

Kállos licks her lips. Her mouth still tastes like come. “Was that good?”

“It was fucking _great_ ,” Rian replies enthusiastically. “I will preen your feathers whenever you want.”

Kállos grins. “You actually still owe me.”

“What?”

“You said if I got you off you’d owe me a favor.” She tosses her hair over her shoulder and straddles his lap. “I’m cashing in my favor now.”

Rian groans. “Babe, I’m not going to be able to fuck you right now.”

“Who said anything about fucking me?” she replies. She takes his hands, putting one on her breast and the other down the front of her shorts. “Feel how wet I am,” she says, sultry, licking his jaw. “It’s my turn.”

Rian’s hands are eager to do the work Kállos has assigned them. He squeezes her tit, and she sighs. With the other hand, he slips his fingers between the lips of her pussy. “Soaking,” he mutters. “Like a filthy w—filthy.”

Kállos decides right then she doesn’t care about that word anymore, her past be damned. Not when she oh so badly wants to hear Rian say it.

“Call me a whore,” she says. _Or a slut. Really. It’s okay. I want it._

Rian gives her a split second of quizzical eye contact before he complies. “Soaking wet, like a fucking whore.”

She laughs breathlessly, grinding down into his hands. “Potty mouth.”

“You literally asked for this.”

She raises her chin. “Then give it to me.”

Rian slips a finger inside of her, capturing her lips in a kiss. Kállos moans into his mouth as he starts to finger her. She gyrates her hips into his touch, hands on his shoulders, gasping obscenely.

“That’s right,” Rian mutters. “You’re so desperate for it, aren’t you? Only one thing on your filthy mind. Just falling apart at my touch, begging for it.”

“Yes,” Kállos pants. She lets out a whine when Rian adds a second finger. “Oh gods, keep doing that. Fuck me—fuck me with your hands.”

Rian sucks at her neck, still steadily finger-fucking her. “Do you want me to eat you out?” he offers.

“No,” she gasps. She arches her back, pressing into his mouth. “I want you to keep biting me.”

Rian pulls out of her cunt and rubs at her clit, fingers slick. She chokes, nails biting at Rian’s shoulders. _Turn around,_ Rian commands. Kállos scrambles to do just that, and he pulls her back flush against his chest, sliding his hand back down her loose shorts immediately. The angle is better this time, and he rubs at her clit in alternating speeds, faster until she’s bucking her hips into his touch and her legs are tense, then slowing down to a frustratingly slow tease. He periodically slides his fingertips between her lips, both to tease at her hole and make sure that she stays lubricated enough to make it easy to continue rubbing her off.

“Rian,” she gasps. “Ohhhhhh, fuck, Rian.”

Rian has his mouth clamped down firmly on her shoulder, but he releases it to nose aside her hair and whisper into her ear, “You’re being so slutty for me.”

“You’re just,” she struggles to get her words out coherently, “ _fuck_ —so good at getting me—off.”

“You’re just a whore who gets off on whatever touch she’s given,” Rian growls. “Your pussy is so wet it isn’t hard to fuck you. Like this.” And he shoves his fingers back inside of her pussy.

Kállos whines obscenely loud, tilting her head back over Rian’s shoulder. His free hand moves to cup her tit, pinching at her nipple, and the wine gets louder.

“I bet your eyes are so pink,” Rian says, goading her on. “I bet you’re so desperate that you’ll greedily take whatever I give you.”

“Please,” Kállos says, desperate.

“Please what?”

“Please make me come,” she begs. Her skin feels hot; her muscles are tense and trembling. “Please.”

She can feel Rian’s grin against her skin in the scratch of his stubble on her shoulder. He doesn’t reply, just roughly starts fucking his fingers in and out of her cunt, palm pressed close to tease her clit with each thrust.

Kállos dissolves into a blubbering mess, biting out obscenities and nearly crying with the stimulation. Rian is a damned good lover, and he knows it.

“I’m gonna come,” Kállos gasps, desperately jerking her hips into his touch. “I’m gonna—holy fuck—gonna come.”

“Come for me,” Rian urges, shoving his fingers in deep. She has no choice but to comply. Her legs tingle from kneeling in the same position. She shoves backwards into her mate’s chest, trying to grab at him from the awkward angle, as her orgasms blooms deep in her pelvis, washing out through her nerves.

Kállos stares at the ceiling, mouth agape, voice lost. She can do nothing but sit there in Rian’s lap, hyperfocused on the hand on her pussy. The tiniest of whines dribbles out of her mouth, and Rian pulls his hand out of her teasingly slow. She slumps against him, chest heaving.

“My turn to ask,” Rian says lowly, kissing her neck. “Was that good?”

“Yes,” she says, unable to elaborate. The fireworks going off in her mind will have to be enough feedback.

“I can’t keep track; are we even now?”

She’s too high on all the chemicals her post-orgasm brain has pumped into her to figure it out. “Even enough.”

“Good,” Rian says. “I’d hate to have outstanding debt.”

* * *

“Kal, come look at this.”

Kállos reluctantly stops running her hands over the protrusion of her lower abdomen and tears herself away from the full-length mirror in their bathroom. She leans out of the door. “What?”

Rian has their TV turned on and she can hear the atrocious jingle of one of those despicable entertainment/celebrity “news” shows that make her skin crawl. “Come look.”

“Turn that shit off,” Kállos complains. She hates these shows. Reminds her of when Apollo had accidentally outed them—well, their famous counterparts; it’s not like anyone at the time knew who Bowie and Jagger really were—on one of them. She’s hated magazines and shows like this ever since, would have them all burned if it was up to her. Kállos walks over to see what Rian is talking about anyway, sensing that what he’s going to show her is important somehow. “What is it?”

“Look,” Rian says softly.

Kállos goes very still when she sees the story the hosts are reporting on. “Is that—”

“Alex? Yeah.”

“Is that—”

“Some random girl? Yeah.”

“But he’s—”

“Gay? In a committed relationship with Apollo? _Yeah._ ” The last word is spoken with such bitter finality that Kállos has to take a breath.

“What is he _doing_ ,” she wonders.

Rian doesn’t answer, letting the news segment explain for them. Kállos watches in something approaching horror as the hosts gleefully conjecture about their lives. “Does Alex Gaskarth have a new special someone in his life? These photos were taken two days ago in Los Angeles, Gaskarth hand-in-hand with an as of yet unknown female companion. The two certainly seem very close!” The photos they flash are amateur, even for the paparazzi, but there’s no mistaking the content. Alex and a girl with short blonde hair are leaving some brunch place, hands firmly clasped. She’s leaning into his side. The sunglasses on her face do nothing to obscure her smug grin.

“But what does this mean for the singer’s long-time boyfriend, Apollo?” the other host jumps in, raising her eyebrows knowingly at her co-worker. “Has the power couple split up? Is there trouble in paradise? Gaskarth has deleted all photos of Apollo from his Instagram, so it certainly seems like the end for the two of them.”

“This also raises questions about Gaskarth’s seemingly confirmed sexuality. The All Time Low frontman has firmly claimed on several occasions to be completely gay, but was that all a front? Has he tired of only having men in his life?”

Kállos feels sick. This is disgusting. And not just on the show’s part. “Turn it off,” she says quietly, looking away from the screen.

Rian complies, and a second later the TV goes black.

They’re silent for a moment, unsure of what to say. Finally, “Do you think Apollo knows?” Rian asks softly.

“If he doesn’t he will soon.”

Kállos starts to tear up. “I don’t understand why he’d do this. He looked so miserable.” Alex’s face had been drawn and tired, not even the hint of a smile. Kállos had no doubt he had no idea that the paps were even there, whereas the girl he was with had seemed acutely aware of the fact.

Rian doesn’t have an answer for her.

* * *

Kállos is starting to think that her having a baby is the best thing that’s happened to _Apollo_ , forget her and Rian.

She’d gotten a text from Gerard, of all people, one evening. They never talked. He was Apollo’s friend, not hers. It’s not like he was a _Jagger_ fanboy.

_Apollo knows I’m telling you. He’s drinking again._

Kállos felt her stomach curl. No.

 _What??_ she sent back. _Do I need to come over???_

Gerard’s reply came a few seconds later. _He says yes._

_Where are u_

_Mine._

“I’m going to the Ways’ house!” Kállos shouted across the house. From another room came Rian’s shouted “Okay” and then she was gone, staggering when she landed in Gerard’s home. It was disorienting teleporting these days.

Gerard and Apollo were sitting in the living room, Gerard on the end chair and Apollo leaning into the side of the loveseat. Kállos immediately plopped down next to him, curling up in his side and laying her head on his chest. “David,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry,” Apollo rasped, sounding very hungover. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Kállos said. “It’s okay. We’re going to help you. We love you.”

Now, Apollo is halfway through his third cup of tea, nursing a headache, and interrogating Kállos on her pregnancy. At some point Lyndsey had wandered in with a set of dominoes and they were playing at the kitchen table. Lyndsey kept winning, which infuriated them all except Gerard, who just seemed happy to be there, and eventually they decide any hope of beating her is lost and start to pack up the set.

“Hey Apollo,” Lyndsey says, setting the last of the dominoes in the tin with a clack.

Apollo pauses in his lecture on the benefits of different diets during pregnancy. “Hm—yes?”

“Can you come with me for a second? Technically these go on the top shelf in our game room.”

Apollo grumbles good-naturedly about how apparently he’s no more important than a step-stool and follows her off.

As soon as they’re out of sight, Gerard leans forward on the table and sighs, running a hand down his face.

“Yeah,” Kállos says quietly.

Gerard shakes his head. “He’s pretty messed up.”

“I knew Alex leaving had hit him hard, but I didn’t know it was this bad.” She should have noticed something. “I feel awful.”

“It’s not your fault,” Gerard says. He tucks his hair behind his ear. “He told me he started because he just wanted to taste him again. Thought one sip of Alex’s rosé wouldn’t hurt. Or one glass. Or the rest of the bottle.”

Kállos leans her forehead into her palm, digging her fingers into her hair. “Gods.”

“I know as well as anyone how much that does _not_ work,” Gerard continues. “But I also know why he thought it would.”

“Can you help him?” Kállos asks.

“He has to want to be helped.”

“I know,” Kállos says. “You two aren’t the only addicts here.”

Gerard raises his eyebrows in acknowledgement.

“But…”

“But can I help him?” Gerard asks. He shrugs. “Maybe. Maybe he needs rehab. Maybe he doesn’t want to get better.”

“He’ll do it for the girls,” Kállos says firmly.

Gerard’s expression softens, no doubt thinking of his own daughter. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“I am,” Kállos insists.

Just then, Apollo bursts back into the dining room and points at Kállos, Lyndsey trailing helplessly behind. “Are you taking vitamins?” he blurts. “You should be taking vitamins.”

Kállos laughs and stands as Apollo approaches her, blabbering on about different vitamin supplements. She takes his wrist mid sentence and places his hand over her stomach. He instantly quiets, breathless, fingers reflexively molding over the bump. “I’m okay, Apollo,” she whispers. “They’re okay. Feel.”

Apollo seems at a loss for words, but he also looks the most grounded he has the whole night. A few seconds pass and he softly. “It’s late.”

“Wow, he can tell time.”

“You should go to sleep,” he says, worry creasing his eyebrows. “A regular sleep schedule is even more important now that—”

“David,” Kállos interrupts gently. “I’m an awful insomniac at the best of times but I am getting enough sleep. Are you?”

He goes silent again, looking guilty. “No,” he finally admits.

“Go to bed, David,” she urges. “This—” she squeezes his wrist “—will still be here tomorrow.”

Apollo doesn’t answer right away, but when he does Kállos feels a wave of relief go through her. “Okay,” he agrees. “You’re right.”

Kállos smiles, and out of the corner of her eye she can see the Ways doing the same. “I’m always right,” she says. “It’s the mom instincts.”

Apollo snorts softly. “Sure.”

They’ll need to talk more about this later, but for now Kállos is just glad to have gotten through to him. It’s a little victory. One they all desperately need.

* * *

Kállos stares down at her favorite jeans in dismay. “They don’t _fit_.”

Rian pauses in his rummage through his side of the closet to grin at her. “I wonder why.”

She’s at eighteen weeks now, a far cry from being ‘big,’ but definitely at the stage where she’s beginning to wonder if her life will consist of sweatpants and stretchy sweaters from now on.

“I’m _fat_ ,” she whines.

“You’re literally just pregnant.”

“Let me complain,” Kállos pouts, shimmying out of the jeans and tossing them aside.

Rian patiently picks them up and slides them back on their hangar. “You’re the least fat person I know. I swear you’re going to break every time I touch you. Besides, all the tabloids just like to talk about how good you look and how it’s incredible how you’re staying ‘slim’ and ‘in shape’.” The disgust is obvious in his voice. Rian hates that type of media just as much as she does.

It’s true though; she is tiny. The skinny works when she’s Eros—she just looks like a twink then—but as Kállos, she feels like a stick, devoid of any womanly curves. She doesn’t even really have any _boobs_ . “It was the heroin,” she says, trying to joke to cover up her insecurity. It _is_ technically true; the incredible amounts of drugs over the years have effectively killed her appetite.

Rian can sense the uncomfort anyway, and he sets his hands on her hips. “Hey,” he says softly. “You’re beautiful, whatever you look like.”

She makes an uncertain noise.

“I’m serious,” Rian promises. He presses their foreheads together. “Your body is beautiful. All the more so for what it can do.” One of his hands touches their growing child. “It’s incredible, and strong, and perfect.” He kisses the end of her nose. “Scars and imperfections and all.”

Kállos tilts her head up to capture his lips in a soft kiss. “You’re scary good at that.”

“At what.”

“Making me feel better.”

“What would I be if I couldn’t even make my mate feel loved?” Rian asks.

“Touch me,” she whispers in lieu of reply.

Rian’s hands move from her hips to her ass, and he kisses her again.

“Bed,” she mumbles into his mouth.

Rian carries here there, setting her down gently.

 _More_.

Rian happily complies, pushing her legs apart.

When they’re spent, they sink into the mattress together. Rian lays his arm over her waist, hand on her tummy. His warm fingers spread lazily over her skin, memorizing the new curves of her body. “This is my favorite way to fall asleep,” Rian mumbles into her hair.

Kállos feels warm. “Mine too.”

* * *

The gel is cold, but Kállos doesn’t pay any mind, focusing instead on the screen and Rian’s hand in hers. Their doctor presses the ultrasound device to her belly, sliding it across her skin, looking for a tiny form to show the couple. She’s twenty weeks along.

“There’s the heartbeat,” Dr. Ganguly, their OB-GYN, says. A gently swishing _thu-thump_ comes from the machine, far away and foggy.

This isn’t their first ultrasound, but Kállos still feels high on excitement every time she gets to hear the baby’s heart beating. Rian’s thumb brushes over the back of her hand. _Baby_ , his thoughts pleasantly hum.

“There’s the head,” Dr. Ganguly says, half distracted.

Kállos feels anxiety stutter her heart. Rian squeezes her hand, fine-tuned into her emotions.

“And there…” Dr. Ganguly points to the screen, breaking into a high-watt smile. “Are you two ready to know the gender?”

 _Sex_ , Kállos thinks. _Gender and sex are different._ Now isn’t the time to have that conversation. She can sense Rian’s silent laugh at her disgruntled thoughts anyway.

Rian squeezes her hand again. “Well?” he asks. “You ready?”

“Yes?” Kállos says. It sounds more like a question. “Yes,” she repeats. Gods, she’s nervous and she doesn’t even know why.

Dr. Ganguly can’t stop smiling. “It’s a boy!” she says.

Kállos immediately tears up, the release of tension and the sudden wash of love too much for her. “A boy,” she whispers, squeezing Rian’s hand back. They’re going to have a son.

“A boy,” Rian repeats. He’s misty-eyed.

“Congratulations you two!” Dr. Ganguly says, looking bright.

“Thank you,” Rian says earnestly, turning his perfect smile on the doctor. She giggles, a little flustered, but Kállos is too giddy to worry about being jealous. “Thank you.”

“Of course. And everything looks great too,” she adds. “You’re very healthy, Mrs. Dawson, and your baby is as well.”

Kállos feels so light she thinks she might float away. A baby. Mrs. Dawson. A _baby_ . She’s married to Rian and they’re going to have a _baby_.

“I told you you were incredible,” Rian says. He sounds way too happy for his own good. “We have to tell everyone. Have a party.”

“We have to pick out a _name_ ,” Kállos frets. It wasn’t too bad naming Stra’tius—it was old Greek custom to name a son after his grandfather, and Stra’tius was an epithet of Zeus. And then, to show some mercy to the poor boy, they shortened it to Ty to make it easier on everyone. But now...now there is no limit to the possibilities.

Rian brings up her hand and kisses it. “We’ll get there. We still have twenty weeks; we’re only halfway there.”

“Yeah—half our time is _gone._ ”

Rian blows air out of his nose in amusement.

“Would you two like a printout?” Dr. Ganguly asks.

“Yes,” they both say, immediately.

“Oo, excited are we?” she asks, hitting a button. A printer starts to whir.

“Very,” Rian tells her.

Dr. Ganguly prints hands over the ultrasound. Kállos takes it gratefully. She looks down at the fuzzy monochrome swirls with reverence. That’s _inside_ her. That’s a _baby_.

“Hello,” Kállos whispers, touching her fingers lightly to the still-warm paper. “We can’t wait to meet you.”

* * *

“What do you _mean_ he dropped an album?”

Kállos forces her eyes open. She’d fallen asleep on the couch, her feet in Rian’s lap. She’s been so tired over the last couple of days, all of her energy sapped from her body.

“What the _fuck_. All of them?”

Kállos grunts softly, her eyes sliding closed again. She’s still so sleepy.

“No I haven’t fucking listened to it, when would I have listened to it? I didn’t know he’d done this bullshit until two minutes ago.”

As much as she’s interested in whatever Rian is yelling about on the phone, Kállos really just wants to go back to sleep. _Shhh_ , she thinks groggily at him.

Rian’s voice drops with the next sentence. “I don’t care if he _is_ Alex Gaskarth, that doesn’t give him license to do whatever the hell he wants with content we _all_ made.”

He shifts, and Kállos grunts and pulls her feet from his lap. If he’s just going to disturb her much-needed nap then she’ll deal with cold feet.

“No, fuck him. At this point I think the band is broken up and I don’t even know if I care enough to try and get it back together.”

That’s enough to finally get her to force her eyes open. Rian hangs up soon after and sighs, tilting his head back. “Who was tha’?” Kállos mumbles.

“Vic. Fuentes.”

“What happened?”

“Alex rereleased _Don’t Panic_ with all the b-sides we agreed would get put on the next album.” Rian’s voice is so bitter. “And he recorded acoustics of some of the singles to bulk it out.”

“The one with Vic too? Is that why he was calling?”

“Yeah. We’re all pissed off at him.”

Kállos wants to be angry, wants to yell and find Alex and bitch slap him for fucking everything up so badly, but she’s just...so tired. Her eyes slide closed again against her will. “Fuck him.”

“Are you okay, angel?” Rian sounds suddenly concerned.

“M’just really tired,” Kállos murmurs. _Don’t know why. Kinda sad._

“Angel,” Rian says, the bite gone from his voice. He leans down to kiss her hip. “What’s wrong?”

“Does something have to be?” she asks. “Is it not enough to just be sad?”

“Of course it is.”

“Doesn’t help that one of my best friends has fucked off for who knows what reason during the time I’d like to have him around most,” she adds. Every word she speaks seems to sap her energy even farther, until she just wants to sleep for seven years.

“He really fucked off and said all of our feelings be damned, didn’t he,” Rian says, not really a question.

Kállos closes her eyes. “Yeah. Can you carry me to bed? I don’t want to get up.”

“You’ll feel better if you move a little.”

“I’ll feel better if you take care of me.” Knowing she’ll get her way if she does, Kállos adds, “Besides, I’m pregnant.”

Rian shakes his head, but he’s smiling. “Low blow.” He reaches down and she encircles his neck with her arms, pulling herself against his warm torso. When he sets her down in bed she doesn’t let go until he gives up and just slides in next to her. Kállos snuggles into his chest, content.

“You know,” Kállos mumbles.

Rian hums in response.

“I think Apollo’s met someone. He won’t tell me, but I know.”

“You’re such a gossip.”

“I was just thinking about how much I love you,” she says, a smile in the corners of her eyes. “And that Apollo deserves someone like that too.”

“You think he loves him already?”

“I think _she_ could,” Kállos replies sleepily. “I hope so, at least. As long as she’s better than Alex.”

“You’re really pissed at him.”

 _Of course._ “He can fuck off.”

Rian strokes her hair. “Don’t need him anyway.”

Kállos presses closer. _No. Just need you._

* * *

“What are you thinking about?” Rian asks, leaning against the counter and taking a sip of his second cup of cold brew.

Kállos is sitting contemplatively at the table, chasing the last of her breakfast around the plate with her fork. She doesn’t feel very hungry. Both because of the throb of a headache coming from Rian and also because— “Alex.”

Rian lets out his breath and sits next to her. “What about him?”

“He didn’t just hurt Apollo you know,” she says, soft.

“I know. He’s one of my best friends.”

“He’s one of _my_ best friends,” Kállos says bitterly. She swallows. “He should have been here last night.” They’d had a big house party, inviting all their friends and family to celebrate. Rian had gotten a little—okay a _lot_ —drunk and wouldn’t stop going around and telling everyone about their son. In a moment of tension, he’d drunkenly offered Apollo a beer, and Kállos had almost cried with relief when Apollo gently turned him down, saying he didn’t want a drink. He couldn’t physically lie, so he really meant it.

Meanwhile, Jack and Zack fired name ideas at her for over an hour, Jack coming up with more and more ridiculous ideas and Zack completely missing the point and suggesting a long list of nice respectable mer names.

“I am _not_ naming my son Tickism,” Kállos said firmly.

“No, _Tkizm_. You say it incorrectly,” Zack responded.

“Zack, why would I give my baby a mer name when we don’t even call _you_ by your mer name?”

“Maybe you should start,” Zack said, squinting at her.

Kállos squinted right back. “I will not be calling you that.”

“Jack was the one who was not to say my name.”

“It’s not my fault that Jack is useless and can’t say things and started calling you Zack instead.”

“Hey,” Jack protested. “I was drunk, he was a fish, everything was strange, and I didn’t know mer. How the hell was I supposed to say _Zthriandtx_ after hearing it once?”

Kállos shrugged. “Either way I’m not doing it.”

Zack put on an expression of hurt, but Jack’s laugh left it powerless. “Zack, you’re not going to convince her.”

“The saying of it is beyond her,” Zack said, the challenge clear in her eyes.

“Μπορώ να το πω αυτό. Δεν θέλω να το πω,” Kállos retorted. She smiled sweetly. “I’m very multilingual, your majesty. I have no problem with the pronunciation of different languages.”

Zack looked unsure as to whether or not he should fight her further on this. Jack touched his knee and shook his head. They made brief eye contact, wordless communication passing quickly between them.

Jack turned back to Kállos, looking serious. “He says if you’re not going to give the baby a mer name then he has a ‘human’ suggestion.”

“What,” Kállos asked, wary.

Zack grinned mischievously.

“ _Roman_ ,” Jack said, and immediately dissolved into giggles at the horrified expression on her face.

“Shut the _fuck_ up. I am no longer taking suggestions.”

Jack and Zack just laughed at her.

Kállos shakes her head to clear it of the memory. “He should have been here,” she repeats, softer.

Rian just looks sad, and a little angry. “I don’t think he’s coming back.”

Kállos doesn’t blame him for thinking that. Apollo had told her that he wasn’t going to let Alex back even if he tried to, for walking out on them all like that without so much as the courtesy of an explanation. He’d also told her he’d started sleeping with other people. She doesn’t have much hope for the last frayed bonds of their relationship.

“I miss him,” she admits. “I hate the bastard, but I miss him.”

“No you don’t,” Rian says.

She almost asks to which of the statements he’s referring, but she doesn’t bother. The god of love isn’t capable of hatred, not really.

“He should be here.” She can’t get past it. Her eyes start to water, one hand on her belly. “He should have been at the party and he should have been at Pol’s house when we told him and he should be here in four months when he’s born.”

“I know, angel.” Rian’s voice is just as sad as she feels.

“He’s so stupid,” she says, tears spilling over. “How could he do this?”

Rian looks lost. “I don’t know.” He reaches over for her hand, and she takes his grip tightly. “But we—all of us, Apollo and Ty and the rest of us—we’ll get through it. We _are_ getting through it.”

“You make it sound so easy,” Kállos sniffs.

Rian’s expression is bittersweet. “I’m just trying to console my pregnant wife.” He takes a deep breath. “It’s really fucking hard and I doubt it will ever fully stop hurting. I still get sad over my parents.” Kállos had heard plenty about them, but never met them—they and Rian had been estranged for most of Rian’s life.

“I’m not sure that helps either,” Kállos says, trying and failing to smile.

Rian shrugs and rubs the back of her hand with his thumb. “Fuck him?”

The smile finally manages to break through. “That works.”

* * *

They go to sleep as though it’s any other night. Kállos pulls on one of Rian’s old T-shirts and slides in bed next to her husband. Kállos curls up in his side, pulling the arm that snakes around her waist close, placing Rian’s hand on her belly.

 _Can’t wait_ , she feels Rian’s thought hum happily. He pulls his hand back so he can slide it under her shirt and place it right on her skin, feeling the roundness that finally looks like a pregnant belly.

 _Neither can I,_ she thinks back, sleepy. His hand is warm on her stomach, and she feels safe curled between his arms, one of his legs pressed between hers.

“Goodnight, angel,” Rian whispers into her hair.

“Night,” Kállos mumbles sleepily.

She wakes up a few hours later, feeling as though something is wrong. She can’t tell what yet though, and rolls over laboriously, feeling achy, and touches Rian’s shoulder. “Rian,” she whispers. He doesn’t wake, just stirs sleepily. “Rian,” she repeats a little louder, a little more urgent. Her joints are audibly grinding together.

Rian grunts. “Whmmm?”

The pain of her ache spikes, curling into her lower abdomen and cramping every muscle in both directions. She gasps sharply, her nails digging into Rian’s shoulder.

He finally wakes more, sitting up in bed. “Kal?” he asks, high alert. “What is it?”

“Hurts,” she grunts, curling into a fetal position, cradling her belly. “It hurts.”

She can feel the worry radiating off of him. “What hurts?”

“Everything,” she gasps. Fire simmers in each of her bones, sparking hotter. Her mouth tastes like iron, like ichor. “Call Apollo. _Now_.”

Rian nearly falls out of bed trying to get to his phone. Apollo doesn’t pick up the first time, and Rian swears, immediately dialing again. “Answer you bastard.” Kállos thinks she hears a tiny voice on the other end of the line go “ _Hello?_ ” before everything hurts too much to pay attention anymore.

“Rian,” Kállos whimpers, reaching for him, and then her body explodes in pain.

* * *

Rian has never heard a sound so terrible in his life as hearing Kal scream. It’s a ragged, broken sound, like shards of glass crunching in her lungs. She convulses, kicking, and Rian yells for her. “ _Kal!_ ” He drops the phone and tries to grasp her wrists, to keep her from hurting herself, but she’s too strong for him, throws him off of her and the bed. He crashes to the floor, groaning.

“What’s going on?” Apollo’s voice sounds from behind Rian.

Rian scrambles to his feet, ignoring the question in favor of getting back to his wife. “ _Kal_ ,” he says again, desperately.

Apollo is at his side, snatching at Kállos’ wrists and pinning them down, trying to keep her from hurting herself.

“What do we do, what do we do?” Rian asks, near hysterics.

“Rian,” Kállos says weakly, between gasps of breath. Her hand darts out to grab Rian’s hand, squeezing so hard the bones in his wrist pop. He swears, buckling forward with the pain.

“Apollo,” he grits, “fucking _do_ something.”

“I don’t—” Apollo begins, but then he stops, swearing so explicitly that Rian blinks in surprise.

“What?”

Apollo’s voice is tight. “She’s bleeding.”

He’s right. The bed is slick with her blood, ichor spilling from between her legs.

Rian feels sick.

“I’m taking up to the hospital,” Apollo says. He reaches out and clamps down on Rian’s shoulder, his grip icy cold and so strong Rian cries out.

The next second they’re in the ER. Someone shrieks in surprise, then again in recognition. It’s hard to not know who they are.

“Help!” Rian cries, desperate. “Someone! My wife, _help_ her!”

For several long, agonizing seconds, it’s as if no one hears them. Slowly and then all at once, hospital staff appear, asking questions, looking determined and serious, talking in clipped tones among themselves. There are nurses and doctors and someone has brought a gurney, and Kállos is still screaming. She’s still screaming. Screaming.

Rian shakes off the hand that tries to hold him back, ignores the low voice trying to calm him down. He doesn’t want to go sit somewhere, he wants to go _with_ them. Kállos is still bleeding and now they’re trying to take her _away_.

“Sir please, you can’t go back with them,” the nurse pleads.

Rian studiously ignores him, ignores the stares he’s getting. “Let _go_ of me,” he spits, yanking his arm back. “Don’t fucking touch me. I need to go with her.”

“Rian.” It’s Apollo this time, with a cool hand on his back. Rian can feel the natural sedatives in the god’s aura sink into his skin, but he struggles to hold onto his anger and indignation. It’s better than feeling afraid.

“Stop,” Rian says, jerking away from Apollo too. “You don’t touch me either.”

“ _Sir,_ ” the nurse tries again.

Apollo stops him, murmuring something that seems to convince him to stand down.

Rian is too focused on the doors Kállos has been taken behind to care what they say, but Apollo grabs him again before he can get more than a few steps. “ _Rian_ , stop. You can’t help her. You’ll just get in the way.”

“I’m a _doctor_ ,” Rian says, voice broken. “I have to be able to help her. I’m her husband—I have to _help_ —”

Apollo stands between Rian and the door, a hand on each of his arms, looking intently into his eyes. Rian hasn’t seen him look this clear-headed since Alex didn’t come home. “I’m also a doctor,” he reminds Rian, quiet but firm. “And as one doctor to another, _you can’t help her_. You have to let the professionals do their jobs.”

“I’m a professional,” Rian protests, but whatever else he was going to say dies in his chest. He knows Apollo is right, he just doesn’t want to accept it. He hates this, this feeling of lack of control, the not knowing. He wants to be in there with them, but at the same time knows he’d get in the way. “She’s all alone in there,” he says, broken.

“She’s not alone,” Apollo says firmly. “There are a lot of doctors all doing their jobs and making sure she’s going to be okay. And _you’re_ not alone either. I’m staying until this is over.”

Rian’s whole body is shaking, but he just nods and finally lets himself be led off to a waiting room. He sits, hunched, both legs bouncing anxiously, while Apollo makes phone calls. He calls his Artemis, asking his sister for yet another favor of watching the girls. He calls Jack, telling him in a tight voice what’s going on and that they’ll keep him updated. He calls his son, and paces the room just listening to him speak.

Rian has no such luxury of a soothing voice on the other end of the line. The person he would call is currently in the emergency room, bleeding and crying and in danger. Dread tightens in his stomach, something through their Bond souring ominously. Rian feels helpless, fidgety. There’s nothing he can do.

There’s nothing left to do but wait.

* * *

When Kállos wakes up, she doesn’t know where she is. She feels groggy and sore, and the lights are too harsh. She and Rian don’t even have a light fixture like that in their room. She doesn’t...she doesn’t feel right. She’s still in a lot of mild, achy pain, yes, but—

“Ros?” It’s Rian’s voice, croaky and broken.

Kállos groans. “Where—” she stops, disoriented, trying to get her vision to focus. Her voice doesn’t sound like her voice.

Half a second later she realizes why. It’s not her voice. It’s Eros’.

She— _he_ tries to sit up, but pain shoots through him, worse than the time in the fifties he was jumped and left to die in an alley, and he cries out, screwing his eyes shut.

Instantly, he can feel Rian’s hand on his, sliding his fingers between his and squeezing to give as much comfort as he can. “Angel, it’s okay, don’t try to sit up.”

Eros fights to breathe evenly, slowly opening his eyes and letting Rian’s handsome face swim into focus. “Where am I?” he rasps. “Why aren’t we at home? Why am I—” He doesn’t finish his question. He doesn’t think he wants to know the answer.

“You’re in the hospital.” It’s Apollo, leaning against the wall, looking tired, looking like he wants a drink.

“Why.” It’s not really a question. If he thinks about it, Eros knows why.

Apollo looks like he’d rather be anywhere else. “You miscarried.” The word sounds like acid on his tongue. “The baby…”

“No,” Eros whispers. “No.”

“It was too soon, Ros,” Apollo says gently. “There was no way to save him.”

“ _No._ ”

“Eros,” Rian says, voice cracked open. “Eros.”

Without even realizing it, Eros is crying. “No.”

Apollo doesn’t answer.

“ _Why?_ ” Monosyllabic sentences are all he can manage.

“You changed.” It’s Rian. Eros nearly doesn’t recognize his voice. He’s never heard him sound like this before, like he’s barely hanging on. “The pregnancy wasn’t viable if you didn’t have the right organs for it.”

Eros shakes his head and immediately regrets it. The room is swimming, moving in slow motion. With a jolt, Eros realizes how light everything feels. “Am I...high?” he croaks through his tears.

A muscle in Apollo’s jaw pulses. He looks unhappy. “They gave you a lot of pain medication.”

“I told them not to.” Rian sounds more dead than he did after he returned from the Underworld. “But it...I don’t know, they thought it was a good idea. You wouldn’t,” he pauses, taking a breath, “you wouldn’t stop screaming.”

“No.” Eros doesn’t know what he’s saying no to anymore.

Rian reaches for him but Eros shrinks away from his touch, as much as he wants it. _Don’t._ Rian looks like he’s been slapped, and he sits there in stunned silence.

Eros can’t stop crying. He feels so empty inside, so wrong, so broken and bad. He didn’t know he wanted to be a mom again, and he was going to get the chance and then it was _taken away from him_. “Why did I ch-change back?” he sobs. “I killed him. I _killed_ him.” He clutches at his arms, nails digging into his skin.

“ _Eros_ ,” Apollo says firmly. “Listen to me. You didn’t kill him. It was an accident. You had nothing to do with what your body did on its own.”

“But why did I change _back?_ ” Eros agonizes. He shouldn’t have been able to, didn’t even want to.

Apollo looks grim, looks tired. This isn’t the first time Eros has cried to him about being stuck, and it’s not the first time Apollo hasn’t had the answers. “I don’t…”

“I didn’t ch-chage in s-seventy-six.” Eros plows on as though he wasn’t really waiting for an answer. “I wanted to, once, seven months in, when—when I thought that if I had to spend one more s-second as a woman I’d vomit, but I _couldn’t_ , I couldn’t do it, and Ty was born, and he was fine and—” his voice breaks off. “I was going to have a baby,” he says, raw.

Apollo looks very much like he’s trying not to cry. Eros spares a glace for Rian and is surprised to see that he is.

Rian’s elbows are on his knees, hands over his mouth, and big, warm tears are sliding down his face. His eyes are red when they meet Eros’, and the emotion in them is too much. Eros cuts his eyes away, looking anywhere else.

“I called Jack and Zack earlier,” Apollo says. “Give me the word and they can be here. Or just Jack. Whatever you want.”

“I want more morphine,” Eros says. He’s mostly stopped crying. His emotions are shutting down.

Rian looks stricken. “Ros—”

“I didn’t say I was going to get it, did I?” Eros snaps. That shuts him up. “I just want to be alone right now,” he adds, the fire gone from his voice.

Apollo touches his tongue to his lip but doesn’t say anything. He just gives a curt nod and pushes off from the wall. He hesitates for a second.

Eros slides his eyes over to Rian. “Alone,” he says quietly.

Rian couldn’t look more surprised if he tried. “Angel—”

“ _Alone_.”

“Come on, Rian,” Apollo says softly. “I’ll take you to get breakfast.”

As though moving through tar, Rian stands. Eros can feel the hurt and reluctance radiating through their Bond, but it’s easy to ignore, to shove under his heartbreak. He watches the two of them leave with an easy indifference that he had spent decades cultivating but hadn’t fallen back into in nearly twenty years.

The moment they’re gone however, it all comes crashing apart inside him. The dam breaks. _He_ breaks. He cries until someone comes to check on him because the readings on his heart monitor are so high, and then he keeps crying, hysterical. It wasn’t a ploy to get more drugs—he really can’t stop—but the things they inject into his IV to get him to calm down are welcomed anyway.

* * *

Eros isn’t sure what’s worse, when Rian is at work or when Rian is at home.

When Rian is away, consulting doctors and studying mer biology, Eros is alone. Thoughts crowd his head—thoughts of self-hatred and incredible sorrow and a yearning for just one more hit—and whisper to him through the halls. He’s left to wander aimlessly from room to room, feeling blank, breaking down whenever he comes across something that belongs—that should have belonged to—

When Rian is home, Eros doesn’t feel any less lonely. They don’t talk much. Rian tries, sometimes, but Eros doesn’t reply. The only time Eros lets himself cry is at night, when Rian’s arm is around his waist and Rian’s head is tucked over his. He’s cold even in Rian’s arms. He still doesn’t want to talk about it. Sure, Rian lost him too. But it’s not the same. It’s not the same.

Apparently, there’s also a third option. One where Apollo arrives unannounced, looking more put together than Eros—a first for the summer—and asks to come in.

“You weren’t at work.” Apollo hovers awkwardly in the door.

“I’ve canceled all of my appointments for the next few weeks,” Eros says dully. He’s not sure if he can ever go back.

“Ah.”

Eros’ automatic drive to be a good host is what finally offers to let Apollo sit down. “Do you want some coffee?”

“I don’t drink coffee, Mike.” There’s something akin to worry in Apollo’s voice.

“So no.”

“...No.”

Eros pours himself a mug and settles heavily on the couch, curling into the cushion. He is so small. “What do you want?”

“I want to talk to you about him,” Apollo says cautiously, gently.

Something in Eros’ throat threatens to choke him, and he struggles to swallow it down. “What about him,” he asks, taking a sip of his coffee to give himself something to do.

“You told me to figure out why it happened.”

Eros doesn’t want to talk about this. He doesn’t want to _talk_ about this. “And,” he says, hoping that if he keeps the talking to a minimum he can keep himself from completely breaking down and get Apollo out of his house sooner.

“I think,” Apollo swallows, as though he’d rather not speak, “it was the drugs.”

Eros stares at him, feeling a wave of some kind of emotion rise in him. He sets down the coffee, suddenly repulsed by it. “I’ve been clean for seven years.”

Apollo looks tired. “Yes, but before that.”

“I was using long before Ty was ever born.”

Frustration settles over Apollo’s features. “Since then.”

“You could just be specific instead of playing guessing games with me,” Eros snaps.

“I’m...I’m sorry,” Apollo says. “Let me—look. In 84 you...” He seems lost.  
“Got stuck,” Eros supplies dryly.

“Yes. As Eros. You couldn’t change back, even though you were feeling vaguely dysphoric and you really wanted to. You told me that up until then it had been steadily getting harder for you to change. And you also told me that after you—after we…”

“ _Died_. I died, Apollo, stop being delicate and get to your fucking point.” Eros doesn’t have time for this.

“After you died,” Apollo says, like it hurts him, “it reset. You came back as Kal.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t come back to my family and I went off on a long run of drugs and whoring myself out to pay for them, I _know_ . I know because it was me and I know how you feel about it.” Eros is completely unaffected by Apollo’s shock. “And I was _her_ for nearly a decade. You know,” he adds, something scratchy rising in the back of his throat. “I did try to come back.”

Apollo is silent. Eros isn’t acting like himself and he doesn’t know how to handle him. But when Eros doesn’t go on he softly, “Oh?”

“I tried so damn hard. How do you think I was a man when you met me again, Pol? I was tired of the way I was living. I almost got clean.” His voice is so small. “I don’t know how you did it.”

“I did it for Stra’tius,” Apollo says softly. “I did it for our son.”

Eros decides the emotion curling in his belly is anger.

“Are you saying I somehow don’t love him enough?” he challenges.

“What? Mike, no—”

“Just get to your point,” Eros interrupts.

Apollo takes a breath. “You had control over it still when you were...when Ty was born. You haven’t had control for a very long time. It’s something that happens _to_ you, not something that you do.”

“I’ve noticed.” His voice is hard.

Apollo lets out a frustrated breath. “ _Mike_. I’m trying to say that because you lost control over the changing, there was nothing you could have done to prevent it. It was going to happen no matter what.”

“And it’s my fault because I was the dopehead who couldn’t stop thinking about needles long enough to love my family, right?” The anger curdles, souring.

“I’m not trying to say that.”

“Then what are you trying to say?” Eros asks. “That you don’t understand? Because you don’t, David, as much as you might think you do.”

“You’re not the only one of us who has lost a child,” Apollo says softly.

“What? You think Autumn dying is the same thing? Please.” Eros laughs cruelly. “Don’t act like Alex murdering your daughter is in any way like this.”

“He didn’t _murder_ her!” Apollo fires—literally. A flame licks at the palm of his hand, and he clenches his fist to put it out. “That was uncalled for.”

“You coming here and tell me what an awful person I am and comparing me to your—to Alex was uncalled for,” Eros retorts.

“That’s not what I was trying to _do_ —”

“Then what were you trying to do?”

“You’re the one who brought Alex up!”

“Don’t tell me you still love him,” Eros says. “Not after everything he’s done to you and your family. Fucking some girl just to pass the time. Don’t tell me that.”

Apollo’s expression is dangerous and sad. “You know I do.”

“So we’ve both made mistakes.”

Abruptly, Apollo stands. “I’m leaving. I don’t have to take this.”

“Good. Get out of my house.” He’s shaking, feels like he’s starting to fray.

Apollo gives him a heavy look, eyes deep, and then he’s gone.

And Eros is alone again.

* * *

Eros feels heavy with guilt and sorrow. His elbows tingle. He itches to tear them open. He intends to do just that, seven years of sobriety be damned. There’s enough heroin in his bag to kill a man. And while he may be more than just a man and wouldn’t die, a nice taste of overdose doesn’t sound too bad right about now. He probably paid too much for it, but Eros hadn’t cared when he was buying it. He didn’t care what it cost. He just needed it.

His hands tremble as he closes the bathroom door behind him. He almost doesn’t recognize himself in the mirror. Haggard and hollow, with a miserable stoop to his being heavier than gravity. He places a hand over his flat stomach. Hollow is right.

He gets as far as tying off his arm, yanking the tourniquet tight, before he stops himself. His hands are shaking too badly to even pick up the needle. He bites down on his fist, drawing in a ragged breath. It comes back out in a sob.

Eros lets himself slowly collapse sideways, tucking his knees up to his chest.

It’s too much. He wants to inject heroin into his veins until he stops being real, until his body floats away and he can’t feel anything.

But he can’t. He can’t. It’s been so long. He’s been clean so long. He has to be strong, can’t give in. It helps that he doesn’t think he could get his hands to stop trembling enough to shoot up even if his tried. The agony of losing _him_ is too much to move, too much for even drugs to numb.

Enough time passes that Eros knows he could have hid this if he wanted to. He could have disposed of the evidence and buried himself in bed, high and chasing numbness. Rian wouldn’t have to know. But he just lays there, crying off and one, feeling the cold tile seep the warmth out of his body, until he hears Rian get home.

Rian doesn’t call out to him. Eros hasn’t been answering recently, so he’s lost sight of the point. His footsteps are leaden on the stairs. Eros hears him land heavily into bed.

Tentatively, Eros reaches out with his consciousness. _Deluuqki_. _Rian._

He can feels Rian’s confused answer, the immediate concern that jumps up to probe through their Bond. Eros starts crying again. A moment later, the door opens. Rian freezes.

Rian takes in the sight on the floor. Eros, curled up and crying. The band around his arm, just above his elbow. The needle. The drugs.

He makes an anguished noise and falls to his knees next to Eros. “Eros, baby, what did you do?”

Eros draws in a ragged breath. His throat burns. His body is on fire. “I d-didn’t,” he sobs. “I didn’t—didn’t take anything.”

Rian pulls Eros into a sitting position, leaning him into his chest and checking his arm. His fingers probe the skin on the inside of his elbow, shaky relief pulsing from him when he finds nothing but old, old track marks.

“It hurts,” Eros says. He can’t stop crying. “Ri—it h-hurts so m—so much.”

“I know it does,” Rian says. “I know you do.” He sounds just as broken as Eros feels.

“I don’t w-want it to hurt—anymore.”

Rian strokes his hair. “I don’t either. But this—” he makes a motion to the discarded drug paraphernalia “—won’t help. It doesn’t help.”

 _I know_ , Eros says through their Bond. He can’t bring himself to speak, is crying too much to try. _Hurts._

“I’m here, angel,” Rian whispers. “I’m here.”

They lay on the floor for long agonizing minutes. Eros feels some of the life sink back into his skin where Rian touches him. He’s so warm. Eros is so cold.

It does hurt. It hurts so much. But there’s something different about this that Eros didn’t feel the last time he relapsed. He didn’t want to tell Rian about it then, was too ashamed to even admit he’d been thinking about it. Now, he just wants to pour out all of his want into his husband, let him take it rather than some dealer on the street.

Almost as though he knows what he’s thinking, Rian squeezes tighter. “I love you,” he whispers. “I love you.” The way he says it sounds like _Let me take your pain_.

Eros takes a shaky breath and squeezes back. “I just—it’s all so—” he stumbles over his words, unsure what he’s trying to say. His breath is still shaky, not making it any easier to get out all the things he’s feeling. He gives up trying. The talking will come later. Now, they just lay there. Together.

“I know,” Rian says. Eros can tell he does. Rian’s body aches with the pain of it all. “It’ll be okay; we’ll be okay.”

Eros isn’t so sure he’ll ever be okay again. But the finality with which Rian says it leaves him open to wanting to try to be.

Weakly, slowly, Eros takes Rian’s hand. His mate squeezes. Eros lets all of his consciousness narrow in on the contact between their palms, hyperfocused on the touch. It’s all that matters. Rian is the only person that will never change. The only one that exists. The only one Eros can count on to never leave.

He knows that now.

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings:  
> \- miscarriage  
> \- relapse into alcoholism  
> \- near relapse into drug use  
> Take care of yourselves, folks :)


End file.
